IBM Project Big Green: The Momentum Builds

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When IBM premiered Project Big Green in May, 2007, it did so out of the conviction that energy costs and climate change were major issues confronting not only society but, more specifically, data centers. IBM was convinced that it had an important role to play in enabling data centers to become more efficient users of energy to reduce their carbon footprint.

In announcing Project Big Green, IBM charted a course to redirect $1 billion in annual spending across its businesses towards the goal of dramatically increasing the level of energy efficiency in IT. The plan also included new products and services for IBM and its clients to sharply reduce data center energy consumption, transforming the world’s business and public technology infrastructures into green data centers.

Achieve Energy Efficiency and Reduced CO2 Emissions with IBM’s Project Big Green Solutions

The savings are substantial—a typical 25,000 sq ft data center could reduce its energy use up to 40% through energy efficiency projects. Assuming that the data center uses 22,000 megawatt hours (MWH) of electricity, this would represent savings of 8,700 MWH and $1 million. The estimated energy efficiency savings would avoid the 6,700 metric tons carbon dioxide emissions: the equivalent of 1,200 automobiles or 7 million pounds of coal burned for energy generation.¹

Now, on the one-year anniversary of Project Big Green’s launch, it’s clear that Project Big Green is making its mark on the data center landscape. Arguably the biggest validation of these efforts came earlier this year, when IDG Computerworld selected IBM as the top Green IT Company for 2008—an honor that was part of Computerworld’s very first Top Green IT Companies awards.

Awards like Computerworld’s aren’t handed out for just lip-service to the cause of green computing. Rather, the award recognizes that IBM isn’t simply “talking green” but is taking meaningful steps to reduce its CO2 emissions inventory. Project Big Green has been built around the five elements necessary for a green data center:

• Diagnose: Evaluate existing facilities—energy assessment, virtual 3-D power management and thermal analytics.
• Build: Plan, build or update to an energy efficient data center.
• Virtualize: Virtualize IT infrastructures and special purpose processors.
• Manage: Seize control with power management software.
• Cool: Exploit liquid cooling solutions—inside and out of the data center.

A central feature of Project Big Green is the consolidation of 3,900 distributed servers on to 33 System z servers in IBM data centers around the world. This is expected to save as much as 119,000 megawatt hours a year, enough electricity to power about 9,000 average U.S. homes for a year.

Measuring, assessing, and delivering conservation

Project Big Green has gone beyond deployment of more efficient IT gear to address other sources of power consumption in data centers. Consider IBM’s facility in Southbury, CT, where an energy assessment was undertaken using the Mobile Measurement Tool as part of the server consolidation project. The assessment identified air flow modifications, which will allow the data center to turn off 18 computer room air conditioning systems while maintaining current data center operations. The pending energy efficiency certificates are expected to document a total of 850 MWH of reduced electricity use annually. An additional 750 MWH was saved by retrofitting portions of the facility with high efficiency lighting systems.

Meanwhile, IBM’s Boulder, CO, data center is being expanded and retrofitted to meet the green building rating standards, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. In addition to deploying such energy-saving IT features as virtualization of servers and storage in the Boulder data center, IBM has contracted with the local utility to be supplied with 1,000 megawatts of electricity generated by wind power.

IBM is delivering this same expertise in energy efficient computing to clients, as well. Founded in 1863, Smithfield, RI-based Bryant University prides itself on being wired with “one port-per-pillow” in each of its dorm rooms. As the university was growing, its three data centers were not able to handle enterprise information technology for either communication or computing. To address these challenges, Bryant implemented the IBM Scalable Modular Data Center to meet the technology requirements of its growing enrollment while being energy conscious by implementing a “green data center.” The IBM Scalable Modular Data Center is a cost saving, energy efficient solution that was rapidly deployed as a pre-engineered data center, using IBM Global Services’ capabilities, coupled with APC’s InfraStruXure® data center architecture. In addition, Bryant replaced its Sun Microsystems hardware infrastructure with IBM Power processor-based BladeCenter servers running Linux and IBM virtualization software technology, driving higher utilization rates and helping save energy costs.

"IBM isn't simply "talking green" but is taking meaningful steps to reduce its greenhouse gas or carbon dioxide emissions inventory."

With the market’s enthusiastic reception for Project Big Green, IBM is already at work planning the next phase of what could be called Project Big Green 2.0. One feature of Project Big Green 2.0 will be Energy Efficiency Certificates. Last year, IBM announced the first corporate-led initiative to assist clients to earn Energy Efficiency Certificates for the power reductions achieved in their data center. The certificates are based on energy use reduction verified by a third-party, Neuwing Energy, and for the first time provide a recognized way for businesses to attain a certified measurement of their energy use reduction. The certificates can be traded for cash on the growing energy efficiency certificate market or otherwise retained to demonstrate reductions in energy use and associated carbon emissions.

Another focus of Project Big Green 2.0 will be green software. This effort is intended to go beyond software tools, such as IBM Active Energy Manager for monitoring and managing power and cooling needs in data centers, and focus on how software processing can be made more efficient through such means as application virtualization.

Looking ahead with green-colored lenses

Looking further into the future, IBM sees organizations integrating initiatives like Project Big Green into other areas in addition to the data center so that they have a consistent overall carbon management strategy.

It stands to reason that IBM, having the world’s largest commercial technology infrastructure with more than eight million square feet of data centers in six continents, should lead the way in advancing the green data center. Using the same energy efficiency initiatives it is offering clients, IBM expects to double the computing capacity of its data centers within the next three years without increasing power consumption or its carbon footprint.

With Project Big Green, IBM is leading by example. Clients are learning how they can reduce the CO2 emissions associated with the operation of their data centers while simplifying and consolidating their data centers. The journey toward the green data center is just beginning.