A FRAMEWORK FOR ESTIMATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL

COSTS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE

An Approach to Reducing the Organizational Impact on Environment

Jorge Cavaleiro, André Vasconcelos

CODE – Center for Organizational Design and Engineering

INESC – Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores and Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

André Filipe Pedro

Business IT Strategy & Management, Deloitte Consulting, Lisbon, Portugal

Keywords: Green IT, Enterprise Architecture, Environmental Efficiency, Cost Estimation, Information Technology.

Abstract: Green IT was developed from the growing concerns about the rise of the Information Systems energy cost

and power consumption along with the need for an environmentally efficient image of the organization.

This work addresses and links three main concerns: enterprise architecture modelling, need for energy cost

cuts and energy efficiency of Information Technology. It describes a new method to estimate the IT

architecture energy costs and CO

emissions, based on the technology layer of the enterprise architecture,

and some solutions for solving or, at least, reducing the environmental impact of the latter.

1 INTRODUCTION

The use of Information Systems (IS) is growing

(European Comission, 2008) (U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, 2006) and the consequence of

this increase in the systems number and its working

load (Gartner Research, 2007) is, among others, the

rise of energy demands. This, combined with the

need for operational cost cuts, the demand to comply

with environmental standards (Energy Star, 2009)

and regulations (United Nations, 1998) (United

Nations, 2009) and the concern with implementing a

marketing strategy to decrease the ecological

footprint of the organization, emphasize the need for

action (Global Action Plan, 2007) (Laplante,

Nov/Dec 2008). These are the key areas at the heart

of Green IT.

Our approach to Green IT is more than

Information Technology (IT) infrastructure

optimization, in a sense that it attempts to identify

the existing problems in the infrastructure followed

by a benchmark

This article aims at linking enterprise architectures,

assets costs and technological infrastructure

optimization to address the concerns mentioned

before.

Therefore it reviews the latest developments in

Green IT (2). The following two sections (3 and 4)

describe the problems concerning Green IT and the

approach chosen to solve them. That approach is

demonstrated by using a model (section 5) and a

simple example of its application (section 6). In

section 7 this paper provides an overview about the

latest research developments and its future prospects

(9).

2 STATE OF THE ART

The next sections describe the latest developments in

Green IT and a set of regulations and incentives to

reduce the organization’s eco-footprint.

2.1 Enterprise Architecture

There are three relevant enterprise architecture

models to this work.

451

Cavaleiro J., Vasconcelos A. and Filipe Pedro A. (2010).

A FRAMEWORK FOR ESTIMATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE - An Approach to Reducing the

Organizational Impact on Environment.

In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Information Systems Analysis and Speciﬁcation, pages

451-455

DOI: 10.5220/0002899904510455

 SciTePress

The first one, Zachman Framework (Zachman,

1987), was published in 1987 and opened up an

approach to organize and align the organizations IS

with its business needs.

Today there is a sort of frameworks that allows

us to represent the whole enterprise from business to

technology concepts.

The most recent one is Archimate (Lankhorst,

2009). It defines a meta-model for business

architecture modelling. It is divided in three

organizational layers (business, applications and

technology) and three organizational aspects

(passive structure, active structure and behaviour).

Another similar tool is CEO Framework (FCEO)

(Vasconcelos, Sousa, & Tribolet, 2007). This

framework purpose is to model, on a non ambiguous

way, the organizational targets, business processes

and all of the resources used by the organization to

reach the his goals.

2.2 IT Efficiency

The rise of energy consumption, the research of new

technology and searching for new ways to reduce

energy consumption and environmental impact

created a new drive in the IT researching

community.

The major concern in energy consumption of the

IT infrastructure is the Data Centre (Deloitte

Consulting, 2007). For that reason some

optimizations and monitoring methods have been

developed. Power usage controlling metrics (Belady,

Rawson, Pfleuger, & Cader, 2008), optimization of

chillers operation (Schmidt & Iyengar, 2009), room

ventilation dynamics optimization (Hamann, et al.,

2009) or the reutilization of the heat produced by

servers (Brunschwiler, Smith, Ruetsche, & Michel,

2009) are some examples.

Other environmental efficiency improvements

can be made using fresh technologies like

Virtualization (Mann, 2009), Cloud-Computing

(Vaquero, Rodero-Merino, Caceres, & Lindner,

2009) or storage consolidation plans (Sun StorEdge,

2005).

Another key factor is human behaviour. There

are some daily actions taken that impact on energy

consumption. Some of the solutions are simple as

shut down computer screens while not in use or

reutilize paper to print draft documents or print tests.

3 PRESENT PROBLEM

Considering the issues discussed in Sections 1 and 2,

the problem addressed in this article is: “Could

energy consumption numbers defined by the

Technology Layer be used to estimate costs and

identify environmental problems related to IT?”

Our approach to that problem is spread into three

objective and targeted questions:

1. Could the data related to the energy consumption

and environmental efficiency of artefacts used in

Archimate Technology Layer (Lankhorst, 2009)

be applied to determine the environmental cost

of all the equipment owned by the organization?

2. Could the previous account be used to identify

problems related to the Technology Architecture

layer?

3. Completed the problem identification stage, are

there any solutions to improve environmental

efficiency that could be implemented?

Out of the work scope are subjects such as automatic

architecture identification and the use of other

enterprise architecture layers above technology

(such as business, application or information

architecture layers).

4 THE APPROACH PROPOSED

As previously mentioned in Section 3, the suggested

approach to the problem follows three steps. The

first one is to find out what Archimate Technology

Layer artefacts (Lankhorst, 2009) extensions are

needed to keep track of equipments environmental

cost. Those artefacts are extended with fields

representing the equipments specifications required

to do the cost estimation.

The second step is related to measure the IT

environmental cost. To do this a model was designed

to estimate power consumption. The model related

to servers and PC’s is based in real-time load

measurements in order to estimate the IT system

power usage on given moment.

The last step for solving the problem involves the

suggestion of a set of ideas to reduce the IT

environmental footprint. They are related to the IT

optimizations presented on sub section 2.2.

5 POWER USAGE ESTIMATION

Using measurements made by SPEC (Standard

ICEIS 2010 - 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

452

Performance Evaluation Corporation 2010) a first

version of a server energy consumption estimation

model has been created.

Using data of a set of one hundred and thirty two

measured servers, provided by SPEC, a method has

been developed for energy consumption estimation

based on the server load.

This method assumes that real power

consumption of the server for full and idle load

stages is previously known. Based on those two

stages figures and using a linear analysis represented

on Equation 1, power consumption can be estimated

in real time.

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Tests run using data provided by the SPEC

measurements showed that this method has an

average error of 3.25%. Also there’s a data

correlation of 0.99354 between system load and the

real energy consumption values, so this is a good

approach.

6 METHOD APPLICATION

EXAMPLE

Suppose there are two servers X and Y connected by

a network. The target of this analysis is to estimate

the CO

emissions that each one of them produces.

Consider that the load of each server is 20%.

To represent this IT architecture using Archimate

and those environmental concerns, the artefact

Device has to be extended with the following fields:

• Load – Shows the system’s load percentage;

• Energy Consumption – Model estimation of

device energy consumption;

• CO2Emissions – Model calculation of device

energy consumption;

• Idle Power – Power usage of the system in the

idle state;

• Maximum Load Power – Power usage of the

system in full load state.

Figure 1: Archimate representation of Servers X and Y.

The graphical representation of the architecture

using Archimate model is shown in Figure 1.

The figures of power usage on full

(MaxLoadPower field) and idle load states

(IdlePower field) are previously known. Each server

test sample has been randomly selected from the

SPEC measurements to represent servers X

(SPEC_1, 2008) and Y (SPEC_2, 2008). In Table 1

energy usage values for servers X and Y are shown

for idle and full load stages and real energy usage is

shown at 20% system load (Real Power Usage

column) for later comparison. Using the approach

based on a linear growth of power usage related to

the system load on each moment, the Equation 1 can

be used to estimate the power usage for servers X

and Y.

Having the estimated figures for energy

consumption it is possible to calculate the CO

emissions produced by servers. For that purpose a

Portuguese government regulation (Diário da

República, 2008) establishes the conversion factor.

The results shown on Table 2 are the server

power usage estimation and its related emissions.

Comparing the real power usage figures shown

in Table 1 with the estimated figures for Servers X

and Y the results are drifted 7W (6.2%) and 2W

(1.1%), respectively.

7 ON GOING RESEARCH

This section presents the latest improvements in the

power consumption estimation model.

7.1 Server Power Estimation Model

The suggested model shows some inaccuracy and

functioning limitations.

The tests run with data provided by SPEC study

have shown a higher error of 6% between real and

estimated values at the 20% CPU load.

Table 1: Servers Consumptions.

State

Server

Idle

(W)

Full Load

(W)

Real Power

Usage (W)

Server X 89.40 173.00 113.00

Server Y 155.00 269.00 176.00

Table 2: Estimated Environmental Costs.

Cost

Server

Estimated

Power (W)

Emissions

(kgCO

eq)

Server X 106.12 0.0499

Server Y 177.80 0.0836

To improve it the model has been transformed from

a linear growth between idle and full load stages to a

model split into two sections: idle to 20% CPU load

stage; 20% CPU load to full load stage. Based on the

A FRAMEWORK FOR ESTIMATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL

ARCHITECTURE - An Approach to Reducing the Organizational Impact on Environment

453

same principles used on the original model the

power usage at 20% CPU load is computed but

increased in 10%. After that the original method is

applied for both sections using the new value of

power usage at 20% load stage. Then a

transformation occurs in the graphical representation

showing two lines with different slopes.

This approach achieves a reduction of 1% on the

model average error.

To mitigate a final limitation, an upgraded

version of the model is being developed to be more

practical on real situations when data related to both

idle and full stages are not available.

The data resulting from SPEC study has been

modelled into multiple dimensions which consider

server specifications like the number of CPU chips,

cores per CPU or memory slots engaged. Using this

approach the aim is to find a typical value of power

usage for the idle and full power stages with the

combination of these multiple dimensions.

7.2 Printers Application

At present, the implementation of a model to

estimate the environmental footprint of printers in

the technology architecture is about to be completed.

There are two goals to be achieved with this

model: the first one is to prove that the principles

used for server’s power usage accounting could be

implemented in other technological equipments; and

the second one that is possible to use this efficiency

accounting to rate equipments and find out problems

of environmental efficiency on the technological

layer.

To achieve the first step, for each printing device

the model uses values related to the average time

needed to print one page, number (or average

number) of pages printed on a given time frame and

the manufacturer declared power usage for printing.

Also, for each device, the manufacturer power usage

definition for idle and, if available, “power saving”

mode, are considered. Using this data the model can

keep the account of the average energy consumption

on a given time frame.

The second step uses a framework that is based

on the ratio between the energy used and the number

of pages printed during a given month. With this

ratio calculated for each printer and using the office

layout and equipments distribution it is possible to

graphically check if there are areas in the IT

infrastructure that have energy usage inefficiency.

This generic method is also possible to apply to

servers, using a relevant ratio, like PUE (Rawson,

Pfleuger, & Cader, 2008), to calculate the

environmental efficiency of the equipments.

This approach is being applied in Deloitte’s office in

Lisbon. It is expected that the model will help to

determine existing problems on printer’s layout and

launch a staff awareness campaign on energy

consumption and paper use reduction.

8 CONCLUSIONS

This article gives a new approach to the problem of

environmental costs. This relates the enterprise

architectures with cost accounting to estimate the

environmental costs of IT operation.

This new approach holds a great potential to

address the environmental concerns of enterprise

organizations. Also, it’s a work with good

prospective of future applications due to its possible

extension to the upper layers of the enterprise

architectures and the relation with the environmental

performance, both areas with so many developments

today.

9 FUTURE WORK

This article traces a plan for a future work on Green

IT developments in energy consumption. As it

follows:

• A test on real environment is planned to compare

the results obtained using the model to estimate

the energy consumption against the real

consumption figures measured on the IT systems

considered. Although real energy consumption

figures are being used in the theoretical model

tests, this test in real environment will allow us

to compare the model’s accuracy in a real time

estimation and under real work load;

• This work only considers the technological layer

of the enterprise architecture. The extension of

this approach through all the others layers is

being considered. Therefore it will be possible to

carry on with CO

emissions quantification of

the organization’s products, service delivery and

processes. Going through all layers enables a

wider perception and a strategic awareness of the

environmental impact of the organization’s

energy consumption.

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ARCHITECTURE - An Approach to Reducing the Organizational Impact on Environment

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