How to Put Your ‘Carbonivore’ Data Center on a Diet

Today’s data centers serve as the backbone of modern computing, expected to adapt continuously to the ever-changing internet and cloud landscape. A complex maze of separate systems, appliances, tools, and servers comprise data centers to effectively capture an endless flow of data and communicate it via network traffic. But this insatiable demand comes with a price.

Data centers account for approximately 2 percent (and rising) of all global carbon emissions and consume vast amounts of electricity. In fact, the IT industry isn’t far from reaching chemical and petrochemical levels, which account for 3.6 percent of global carbon emissions.

Many data center operators focus on physical plant management, assuming that the underlying traffic processing is a sunk cost, one that will always just exist. But sustainability is no longer a nice-to-have for the global data center industry. With added pressure stemming from national and international leaders, many tech companies are working to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.

The industry is at a crossroads; the importance of power savings in data centers cannot be stressed enough.

Hidden Costs, Hidden Carbon

We’re seeing the push for reduced carbon emissions from the top down. The Biden Administration recently announced a $2.5B investment to scale carbon capture technology to offset carbon emissions. This pressure, coupled with the current economic climate for tech and other industries, is the perfect catalyst for organizations to take action for energy savings.

After all, energy costs are a significant expense for data centers. Consider, for example, that network analytics probes used across service provider and enterprise networks consume 600 W of power to process 16Gbps of network traffic. Monitoring 100Gbps of data center traffic requires seven probes. This translates to 4,200 W of power consumed. A year’s worth of monitoring with just this one tool requires 36,792 kWh, the equivalent of roughly 100 home refrigerators.

Energy costs have been on the rise globally since 2020 and are forecasted to remain elevated through at least 2024. Understanding where decision-makers can make substantive changes within their existing tools can help to significantly reduce energy consumption, which can result in substantial cost savings.

How to Reduce Carbon Footprint and Costs for Data Centers

All data centers use various security and monitoring tools to capture data communications via network traffic. Many organizations use dozens of separate tools deployed in clusters of multiple individual appliances or as virtualized tools running in traditional servers. The costs of operating these tools add up.

One of the most strategic ways to approach a goal of cutting energy costs and the underlying carbon footprint is to determine what network traffic is processed by which tools. Gaining visibility here can help organizations streamline efforts within the data center.

Here are four ways to make this happen:

Combining these strategies can dramatically increase tool usage efficiency, reducing how much traffic they process and the number of tool instances needed. For example, if the tools are physical appliances, fewer devices are required. If the tools are virtualized, the savings are typically even greater since they don’t each require a dedicated piece of hardware, lessening the devices and energy consumed.

Deep Observability is the Path Forward to Power and Cost Savings

Though cost savings is a high priority for today’s organizations, reducing energy usage and committing to sustainable and environmentally responsible outcomes is truly the icing on the cake. Power savings in data centers of all types mitigate environmental impact, saves on operational costs, and promotes sustainability.

Best-in-class organizations should go beyond the physical plant and use intelligent capabilities, such as deep observability, to reduce and consolidate at the source. This approach avoids downstream energy-intensive processing.

By taking a more strategic approach to observability and maximizing tools’ capabilities, while also cutting unnecessary traffic, organizations can help their bottom line and help the planet.

Michael Dickman is the Chief Product Officer of Gigamon.

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