Reduce Costs by Reducing Power: Navigating the Conflict Between Administering Computers and Being 'Green'

摘要

Managers of public computing facilities are challenged with how to keep computers updated while also minimizing downtime. That is often solved by letting computers update automatically overnight while facilities are closed, or having staff on hand to apply updates manually. The latter usually involves increased payroll budgets. Leaving the machines on overnight and automating updates reduces payroll costs, but brings other challenges. There are significant potential savings in energy costs by reducing the amount of time that a computer is left on, in terms of electricity and cooling. There are less easily quantifiable savings resulting from reduced wear and tear on computer components. However, if computers are off, they cannot be remotely administered or updated. Simply setting all of the machines to turn on automatically at a set hour for updates is inefficient. At the University of Rochester we have created a distributed system with existing classroom audio-visual control systems that functions in a "Wake on LAN" (WOL) capacity. A command can be sent via the network to individual (or all) PCs and Macintoshes to power up on demand, meaning that we now can administer the machines remotely, even after they have been turned off. If the computers in facilities lapse into a reduced power state when not being used, the result will be a reduction of 75% or more in electricity usage for the computing facilities. If this approach were adopted University-wide, the savings could be more than $300,000 annually.