[6159] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Athena Video Monitor Power Save information for outreach articles.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathon Weiss)
Mon Jan 12 18:16:02 2009
Message-Id: <200901122315.n0CNFO2M006113@speaker-for-the-dead.mit.edu>
From: Jonathon Weiss <jweiss@MIT.EDU>
To: William Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
cc: Jonathon Weiss <jweiss@MIT.EDU>, Robyn Fizz <fizz@MIT.EDU>,
release-team@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:08:28 EST."
<E7CB78F2-E1F8-4283-82AD-6B5E3DC9A295@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:15:23 -0500
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Well, ops run servers are generally excluded form that 956, but your
right in that it will include deparetmental servers, and perhaps more
importantly, athenized laptops or virtual machines that don't have a
traditional monitor. And you're also right that we don't have stats
on what percentage of machines that is. I expect that 800 is a very
conservative estimate, but yeah, this is just an estimate and we don't
even have any way to really measure our success.
Jonathon
> The reason why I went with 800 systems was that I wasn't sure how
> many of those 950 were desktops, and how many were servers that
> wouldn't be affected by the change.
>
> -Bill
>
> On Jan 12, 2009, at 6:07 PM, Jonathon Weiss wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi Bill,
> >
> > I actually had a similar conversation with Laxmi this afternoon when I
> > ran into her. I dredged up some of our old research and came up with:
> >
> > Assume 25W/monitor savings (conservative)
> > Assume 1000 workstations (actually 956 according to Dec. stats)
> > Assume 10 sleeping hours per day (conservative)
> > Assume 365 days per year :-)
> > Estimated power savings: 91.25MWh
> > Using Laxmi's (conservative) blended average cost to MIT of $0.11/kWh
> > Estimated cost savings: $10037.05/year
> >
> > Of course, we really only have 1-2 significant digits, but we can
> > reasonably say $10K/year!
> >
> > Even if we go with 950 workstations (which I don't think is strictly
> > required, since we wen't conservative on every other number there) it
> > ends up at $9500/year, and cover 85MWh.
> >
> > Jonathon
> >
> >
> >
> >> Robyn,
> >>
> >> Thanks for the chat today, and for offering to help to get the word
> >> out. Here is a first draft of everything that could be said.
> >> Perhaps you can suggest some amendments to say it more succinctly.
> >>
> >> ---- Begin draft ----
> >>
> >> On Tuesday January 13, 2009, Athena on Linux and Solaris enabled
> >> power save mode on its video monitors.
> >>
> >> Historically, Athena never shut off the video display. A screen saver
> >> with the Athena logo enabled an operator to identify dead machines
> >> just by glancing into the room. A blank screen meant a broken
> >> system. When power saving became standard practice, Athena disabled
> >> the power save feature, fearing that people would be too used the
> >> Athena convention, "blank monitor means dead Athena Workstation".
> >>
> >> The power consumed even by a low power LCD display is significant:
> >> We expect to save in excess of 75 MegaWattHours of electricity per
> >> year. (25 watts per monitor, 10 hours idle time, 900 systems, 365
> >> days.)
> >>
> >> We hope that Athena users will realize that a blank Athena screen no
> >> longer means a broken computer, but instead means Athena has finally
> >> "gotten with the program" -- that our monitors behave like standard
> >> monitors and may need a move of the mouse or the strike of a key to
> >> wake up.
> >>
> >> ---- End Draft ----
> >>
> >> -Bill
> >>
> >> ----
> >> Important: IS&T IT staff will *NEVER* ask you for your password, nor
> >> will MIT send you email requesting your password information. Please
> >> continue to ignore any email messages that claim to require you to
> >> provide such information.
> >> ----
> >>
> >> William Cattey
> >> Linux Platform Coordinator
> >> MIT Information Services & Technology
> >>
> >> N42-040M, 617-253-0140, wdc@mit.edu
> >> http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
