Google's Data Centers use 26 Megawatts - What's the fuss?

In the past 24 hours there has been a ton of press about Google's announcement that they use 26 million watts of electricity. Put another way, that is 26 Megawatts, and put another way, what is all the fuss about over 26 megwatts?

Is it that they ONLY use 26 Megwatts?
It it that Google is so efficient that they run this gigantic brand on such a small amount of electricity?

That has to be it, because folks, 26 megawatts in the data center business is a medium size operation.

Just for comparison's sake, Vantage data centers is building a campus twice that size in Santa Clara. Digital Realty Trust has a project in Dallas that is 4 TIMES that size to service clients. Bytegrid Holdings LLC has a 9.6 megawatt facility about one third the size of Google's entire operation. Just sayin'.

What I also have yet to review fully is the carbon footprint. It was mentioned in another, better,  article that they get 25% of their electricity from renewable sources. Not LOW CARBON sources, but renewable sources. The thing I have paid attention to for years is what I call the carbon chain - what is the carbon footprint from start to finish on a project, and then the impact on an ongoing operational basis. And I'm sorry buying a carbon credit doesn't count. That's like buying recycled paper with Monopoly money.

It mentions that Google builds their own facilities. What about the carbon it takes to manufacture the steel, the concrete, the copper, and other raw materials used in a facility? Then there is the transportation. How many trucks filled with diesel are trucking in heavy loads of new equipment that was produced from scratch and had to source the raw materials, and you get the picture.

Why not re-use a facility as a rule vs build new? Why not cap the radius of transport of newly manufactured goods to 100 miles or less? Why not look at the whole impact and subsequent carbon footprint and measure and improve that? Just sayin'...

Still, great numbers by Google.

And a side note to Noah Horowitz at the Natural Resources Defense Council who  '...cautioned that despite the advent of increasingly powerful and energy-efficient computing tools, electricity use at data centers was still rising, as every major corporation now relied on them. He said the figures did not include the electricity drawn by the personal computers, tablets and iPhones that use information from Google’s data centers.

“When we hit the Google search button,” Mr. Horowitz said, “it’s not for free.”

Trying to link energy usage of other corporations, personal computers, and iPhones to Google's numbers is like blaming a person's alcoholism on the fermentation process. It's a stretch at best. And what are you going to do to stop this reckless usage of the most efficient data center footprint on the planet, stop Googling? Didn't think so. Me neither.

Nothings free, but this is data that shows if we are going to search and want to be green about it, Go Green, Go Google.

ByteGrid Launched

I thought it was high time I got around to announcing the launch of my company - ByteGrid. As the name implies it is the fusion of data (Byte) and Electricity & Telecom infrastructure (Grid) and since we are a data center company, fitting as a short & sweet description.

I few friends have encouraged my to blog about the whole experience and now that we're a real company, I find I have a lot less time to tell the whole story but a few things are important for others to know and were extremely important to me personally to know:

1. Building a company is difficult.
2. Starting a company is more difficult
3. Standing on the other side of the Starting line, with the Finish line out ahead of you is incredibly rewarding and puts the difficulty in perspective
4. Many friends and family will be supportive the first 30 days after the decision to go out and do something on your own, and downright mean and skeptical from then on. They are more scared than you are.
5. Do not EVER let someone talk you out of what you know and believe to be the right way to do something, especially when you hear 'If you changed _________ you would get funded faster...' or anything that dilutes your vision. The vision is yours, not theirs and only you know the right way to execute the vision. A lot of people have money. few have a vision, and even fewer the intestinal fortitude to stay true to their vision.
6. Once you take on other people's money, they have a big say in how things get done. And they should.
7. If you are not used to constant change, competing demands, and like things nice and orderly, you won't like what you're doing. The best laid battle plans change the instant the first shot is fired.
8. Be intimidated by no one. You did something that few people ever do, and even fewer stick with for any length of time, and if they don't understand that, they won't, and keep moving.
9. You won't do it alone. After I brought on partners, it was amazing how quickly things came together and the right compliment of skillsets balanced one another. In our case my partners added deep financial expertise, deeper operational expertise, and legal expertise to my sales talents, and we were a well oiled machine and delegate better than any team I have worked with and for because we know who is best equipped to handle a situation in spite of our egos.
10. If you start a company with the sole reason to make a shit ton of money, then almost every decision you make will be short sighted to that end. If you go into business for yourself because you like it, you will do something better than anything you know of, and is a natural extension of who you are, then the shit ton of money will follow and your decisions will be sound, thought out, and you decide what the right price for your efforts are, not a spreadsheet.

Maybe this helps some of you get off the dime to do something, or keeps others from doing something they are not prepared to do. Either way, it's my experience, my opinions, and the next chapter has yet to be written.

Check out the ByteGrid website, and take a look at our first data center we acquired. It's a Tier IV gem, and I will blog next about why we bought it, and why it is a fantastic facility. I will of course be biased, however, I backed up how solid it is with a lot of money-so I put my money where my mouth is too.

If you want a copy of my data center site selection guide - it's still available. mmacauley at bytegrid. com