[6181] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Athena Release Team 1/21/09 Notes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mitchell E Berger)
Thu Jan 22 17:35:35 2009
Message-Id: <200901222234.n0MMYMKH002468@yaz-pistachio.mit.edu>
To: "andrew m. boardman" <amb@MIT.EDU>
cc: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>, release-team@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:08:00 EST."
<200901222208.n0MM80kN015291@pothole.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:34:22 -0500
From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
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> I just noticed this, which I don't remember discussing but may have
> forgotten:
>
> > We deployed the power saving code. No complaints so far.
>
> My initial anecdotal experience is poor; on Tuesday, I sat down in front
> of a machine in 1-115 which turned out to need some help. I've also
> heard verbal complaints from people who would once have noticed and
> potentially fixed borked cluster machines but now can't.
>
> I'm currently unconvinced of the value of this change. Is the energy
> savings worth the extra time hotline is going to need to spend on
> maintenance? (I realize it's also a done deal and unlikely to be
> readdressed. But if you're soliciting complaints, well, here you go.)
Likewise. There would have been a major difference in energy consumption
back in the days of all CRTs, but now that we're so LCD heavy, I think
we've given up more than we're gaining by doing this. I certainly used
to pass through clusters when I had a couple minutes and fix machines to
save hotline time (and users time waiting for hotline to notice), and
now I can't... or at least I'm certainly not going to walk around and
try to wake up each machine to see if it's okay.
Also, I realize that any savings is theoretically good, but in the grand
scheme of things, $10k a year? We've adjusted all Athena machines for what
would've allowed us to renew just 4 or 5 more boxes at the end of the
year? I think we'd have a larger number of usable machines if we saved
the $10k by buying 4 or 5 fewer new machines a year and instead fixed the
larger number of machines that we now don't realize are down.
I know, I know, it's not Green.
Mitch
