Running your servers - the cost of electricity vs cloud hosting

[Boredguy]

Don't forget to factor in the cost of the aircon to keep the server room cool, especially during summer. That's a real power guzzler.

 

Air Con???? Never had it in my server room so don't have to factor that in

[dhicks]

increases in energy costs will affect cloud datacentres too once their current contracts with suppliers come up for renewal.

 

It'll be interesting to see by how much, exactly - data processing / CPU cycles are potentially things that can be shifted around the globe to wherever is cheapest, and the larger providers (Amazon / Microsoft / Google) have a lot of their own renewable power generation / supply infrastructure these days.

[the_quick]

I have a very quick and not properly calculated look at cloud. And it did look interesting, a possible option. I think it came for me to around £5k per year. My hardware replacement cycle is now at £25k every 5 years for main servers and storage.

Again this is not properly calculated, but it does look good. But at the moment I wouldn't trust my ISP (LA) to have uptime of 99% at least. But I hope we can move server to cloud in next few years. One less thing to worry about

[Rob_D]

data processing / CPU cycles are potentially things that can be shifted around the globe to wherever is cheapest, .

What are the GDPR implications of doing something like this?

[dhicks]

What are the GDPR implications of doing something like this?

 

Most hosts (that I've used, anyway) will allow you to specify the geographic location of your data and/or processing these days - I think AWS does, I know OVH does. Positive Internet, a smaller provider, seem to be making a point of emphasising that they provide UK-based, renewable-powered hosts, so if that's a requirement there's some good options available. I would guess that as, in general, the server hosting market is very global, unless you have some very specific requirements, prices will hover around the global average.

[mavhc]

Does that mean we would get an electrician to swap out the mini circuit breakers (the MCBs) in a consumer unit for Eastron SDM120M MCBs, then there is some way we can connect those MCBs to something via wireless to start logging power usage data? Would we just need the one wireless connection per consumer unit, or one per MCB? Looking at Eastron's website:

 

https://www.eastroneurope.com/products/view/sdm120modbus

 

they only seem to do a 45A version - I think most of our mains circuits are 32A, with some lower-rated lighting circuits.

 

As long as the circuits are below 45A it's fine. You can program each one to have a different ID (They all come as ID 1 annoyingly), then link them together as a 2 wire rs485 bus, and talk to them all from 1 raspberry pi for example. Or pay someone £1000s for a commercial system that'll be terrible.

 

Currently waiting for the electrician to install them for me, programmed them to have different IDs and can read the data fine.

 

https://pypi.org/project/sdm-modbus/

[southhamster]

Well worth investigating getting a solar PV system for your school. Even a 4kWp would make quite a difference - around 3400 kWh each year. A 3 phase 12 kWp even better! You might even have space for a ground mount array. I've installed the PV monitoring systems in quite a few schools.

It's always worth getting an assessment anyway!

There are a few companies who may be able with funding etc, e.g. (I have no association with them )

https://www.solarforschools.co.uk/

[dhicks]

Even a 4kWp would make quite a difference - around 3400 kWh each year.

 

What sort of thing would that power? Am I right in thinking that's around 400W - enough to supply one server, maybe? We have no outside space (central London), but could possibly think about putting solar panels on the roof.

[dhicks]

As long as the circuits are below 45A it's fine. You can program each one to have a different ID (They all come as ID 1 annoyingly), then link them together as a 2 wire rs485 bus, and talk to them all from 1 raspberry pi for example.

 

You mean we can swap out any existing MCB module for a 45A module? Doesn't that mean the circuit breaker would only trip out at 45A, or can the MCBs be set to trip out at a custom level?

 

Looking at the image of the MCB on Eastron's website, there's no little manual swtch on the front like you'd normally use to reset an MCB. Is there a simple push-button reset process, or do you have to use some web or mobile app to reset a tripped MCB?

[southhamster]

What sort of thing would that power? Am I right in thinking that's around 400W - enough to supply one server, maybe? We have no outside space (central London), but could possibly think about putting solar panels on the roof.

That's around 9 kWh per day which is more or less what most households use so a decent amount. Obviously less in winter but if your server room has aircon then a good match during hot sunny weather when it is running harder.

[Andrew_C]

Looking at the image of the MCB on Eastron's website, there's no little manual swtch on the front like you'd normally use to reset an MCB. Is there a simple push-button reset process, or do you have to use some web or mobile app to reset a tripped MCB?

 

It isn't a circuit breaker. Just a sensor. So MCBs on everything, and add those on circuits you want to monitor.

 

But 'most schools have power monitoring' anyway, so you don't need to add it.

[Roberto]

What are the GDPR implications of doing something like this?

 

Microsoft and Amazon both allow you to specify what is hosted where, and will have pretty good privacy statements for all locations (of course, it’s still up to you to ensure that a geolocation meets your requirements). Microsoft are the one I’m most familiar with and, for an example of their flexibility, will allow you to have user accounts in the same O365 tenant that are homed in different locations, so you can have a home tenant in Europe that includes Australian accounts/mailboxes stored in Australian O365 servers, Brazilian sharepoint sites hosted in South America, etc.

[dhicks]

It isn't a circuit breaker. Just a sensor. So MCBs on everything, and add those on circuits you want to monitor.

 

Ah - so these units need to go in the consumer unit next to each MCB, is that right? Doesn't that reduce (well, halve) the amount of circuits you can run from one consumer unit?

[Andrew_C]

Yup. Or in a separate enclosure.

[jmak]

Or something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EMPORIA-ENERGY-Emporia-Electricity-Metering/dp/B08CJGPHL9/

Downside of this one is it seems to be dependent on an Android or iOS app and data goes to the internet.

 

I bought a similar Aeotec device. Partly because it outputs to a local device (not that I'm paranoid about someone setting my data, just don't want to be relevant on an app working) and partly because there wasn't a 3 phase version of the Emporia device when I was buying. All a bit irrelevant because I haven't found an electrician who's prepared to come and fit it. Having a new electricity meter fitted this week and they're going to put isolators between the meter and the consumer unit. Once that's done I'll probably fit the energy monitor myself. It's not complicated, but I don't fancy working on the consumer unit without knowing it's completely isolated.

[PotNoodleTech]

@PotNoodleTech - you may want to re-look at your unit pricing. When existing contracts end, the unit price will be going up a lot. We're going from 13p per unit here at the moment, and if it is anything like consumer pricing, we're looking at 44p a unit instead. So, your £3.40 a day ends up nearly £14 a day.

 

Yes it will be interesting to see what it goes to. Ours is approx half of the consumer price now so hopefully it would go no higher than 22p in the future? That's still gonna be an ouch big bill as whilst my IT services are all about as environmentally friendly as we can get, the same can't be said for lighting/heating/kettles/canteen/etc as it's an old school.

 

We've got a 4kw solar array that was put in yonks ago and that roughly offsets the energy used by the server room so you could say my server room is carbon neutral .................... (just ignore the other 70 rooms)

[mrstrong]

interesting thread! I don't get massively involved in budgets but is power usage something

you have to account for in your "budget requests" / overall strategy ?

 

I guess it doesn't ultimately matter which pot it comes out of as it's still a cost to the school.

 

When you're looking at "cloud" I guess you mean running your "servers" as VMs in azure for example ?

Just started looking myself at azure / intune and would it not be possible to run a secondary school with

a fully cloud intune solution (ie. no virtual servers and no hybrid / on-premises either)?

[jmak]

interesting thread! I don't get massively involved in budgets but is power usage something

you have to account for in your "budget requests" / overall strategy ?

 

I guess it doesn't ultimately matter which pot it comes out of as it's still a cost to the school.

 

When you're looking at "cloud" I guess you mean running your "servers" as VMs in azure for example ?

Just started looking myself at azure / intune and would it not be possible to run a secondary school with

a fully cloud intune solution (ie. no virtual servers and no hybrid / on-premises either)?

Yes [emoji16]

[howartp]

interesting thread! I don't get massively involved in budgets but is power usage something

you have to account for in your "budget requests" / overall strategy ?

Nope!

 

Premises can worry about that, I only deal with the IT side!

[simpsonj]

Nope!

 

Premises can worry about that, I only deal with the IT side!

 

Until premises start slapping all your IT Equipment on timers anyway

[mrstrong]

but if say moving everything to azure would increase "IT budget" by £10,000

you could sell it by saying you'll save you £15,000 on the leccy bill !

 

Also always a bit baffled why secondaries seem to have/need so may servers especially

after reading a bit about azure AD / intune.

[mavhc]

I'm sure they all run at near 100% CPU and RAM capacity and are really needed.

[mrstrong]

slightly off topic (sorry) but this has piqued my interest in wanting to understand how schools are

funded. Can anyone point me at an overview or summarize how it works. E.g. for an LEA maintained school

is it

 

TotalSchoolBudget = numPupils * X + numPupilPrem * Y + AnyRandomGrantsSchoolCanApplyFor

X = allocation per pupil ie approx £5000

Y = allocation per pupil prem (e.g free school meals) approx £1000

 

Then the govs and business manager, head and LEA agree how much money to allocate to each budget pot (e.g. 3 year plan reviewed annually?)

e.g. staffing (main one!), IT etc.

 

Within IT I know we have separate budgets eg. hardware and software and we are not supposed to spend money from

the hardware budget on software etc which can be a bit annoying. Eg a few years ago we had a few grand left over

in hardware and computing lead was told to spend it (not allowed to "carry it over") and so some rushed purchases

where made without much thought.

 

I guess it gets more complicated given academy schools etc and differences between england, scotland, wales.

 

Given costs like energy prices are rising will schools have to increase that budget pot and reduce another pot

which could mean e.g. "letting some staff go" (not re-hiring ) to cover the leccy bill ?

[jmak]

You've essentially got it.

 

Full details here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pre-16-schools-funding-local-authority-guidance-for-2022-to-2023/schools-operational-guide-2022-to-2023#introduction

 

And here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1003492/2022-23_NFF_Policy_Document.pdf

 

Headline figure is that funding is going up by around 3% this year, although some schools will do slightly better and some slightly worse.

 

And yes, they have to pay the increased energy bills, the 1.25% employer's National Insurance uplift and the increase in salary due to the uplift in national minimum wage for any employees on that (probably quite a few IME), salary increments, plus any public sector wage settlement out of that 3% increase. When I was a governor our staffing costs (salary, NI, pension contribution, sickness insurance etc) gradually increased from around 75% to 80% of the total budget. And yes, the only way to save money was to not replace staff when they left and try hard to recruit inexperienced teachers!

[mavhc]

I've not seen specific rules about what you have to spend the money on though, hw vs sw etc.