EasyStreet Offers Renewable Power to Customers

Despite costs, Oregon’s leading Data Center makes a forward-looking commitment

Beaverton, Ore. — June 6, 2007 — EasyStreet Online Services, Inc. is committing to buy PGE Clean Wind^SM power for roughly half of the company’s Data Center energy needs. This commitment makes EasyStreet a Gold-level PGE Clean Wind Partner.

Plus, EasyStreet now offers a Renewable Power Option for its colocation customers who house their servers in EasyStreet’s Data Center. Customers requesting this option will pay a premium as low as $20 per month for renewable power to their servers based on their power configuration. This is a simple pass-through of the premium PGE charges for the Clean Wind power.

Says John Beaston, EasyStreet co-founder and vice president of customer service, “We think sustainable business practices have a lot to do with EasyStreet services. Our Data Center is a major consumer of power, and PGE Clean Wind is an important way for us to lessen the impact.“

First renewable power customer signs up right away

Since announcing the sustainable-power program, EasyStreet has had several customers sign up, with Organically Grown Company being the first. Organically Grown is the largest wholesaler of organic produce in the Pacific Northwest and an impassioned sustainability proponent. Says Organically Grown’s Business Systems Analyst, Waylon Spoden, “Sustainability has for too long been ignored by the technology industry. When I heard EasyStreet was offering renewable wind power to its customers, I responded immediately that we had to have it. I am really excited that EasyStreet is taking this and other large steps toward sustainability.” 

In addition to Clean Wind power in the Data Center, EasyStreet uses 100 percent PGE Renewable Future^SM power in the office section of the building. This power is from the Klondike II Wind Farm in eastern Oregon.

Some background info: Data Center power an escalating issue

Data Centers are facilities housing numerous computer servers and the infrastructure necessary to support them. Studies abound about Data Centers’ ever-increasing appetite for power. A recent eWeek article cites a study funded by AMD and authored by Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., a staff scientist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and consulting professor at Stanford University. Koomey presented his report at the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit in New York in February. According to the eWeek article, “The amount of electricity used to power the world's Data Center servers doubled in a five-year span due mainly to an increase in demand for Internet services, such as music and video downloads and telephony.”

Koomey predicts that the amount of power needed to run the world's Data Center servers could increase an additional 40 percent by 2010.
Randy Allen, corporate vice president of AMD’s server and workstation division, said of Koomey’s findings, "Though we have long known that Data Centers worldwide consume a significant amount of energy, AMD believes this is a wake-up call not just for the IT industry, but also for global business, government and policy leaders. This study demonstrates that unchecked demand for Data Center energy use can constrain growth and present real business challenges.”

Cooling costs an additional power drain

It’s not just the power to run servers that makes Data Centers such energy gluttons -- it’s also the power needed to keep them cool. “Every kilowatt burned by those servers requires another 1 to 1.5 kW to cool and support them,” according to Koomey’s report.

Said Rick Oliver, Data Center operations senior engineer at the University of Phoenix, “When it comes to Data Centers, cost isn't irrelevant, but it's not about cost. It's about uptime. The whole industry has gotten hotter and more power-hungry. Within the last five years, servers went from using around 30 watts per processor to now more like 135 watts per processor.”

Another eWeek article cites a study conducted by Uptime Institute, concluding that the Data Centers they examined had an average of 2.6 times the amount of cooling equipment they needed but still had hot spots covering 10 percent of their total floor space. Why is cooling so vital? According to the report, each 18-degree increment above 70 degrees reduces the average server’s reliability by 50 percent.

Federal concern about Data Center efficiency

A July 2006 bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives called for a six-month study on Data Center efficiency. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a 156-page draft report available on the EPA's server and data center energy efficiency site. The EPA says it is “working with all interested parties to identify ways in which energy efficiency can be measured, documented and implemented in Data Centers and the equipment they house, especially servers.” The agency plans to send a final version to Congress by the end of June.

About EasyStreet

EasyStreet Online Services is Oregon's largest independent Internet Service Provider (ISP) and Managed Services Provider (MSP). Its multi-million-dollar Data Center and team of professionals provide reliable, responsive services and ensure outstanding performance and scalability for more than 2,300 Northwest businesses. Services include a variety of high-speed Internet access services (up to GigE), web site and managed application hosting, colocation, monitoring, storage services, and hosted Microsoft Exchange for Outlook. Founded in 1995, EasyStreet is locally owned and managed with a team of nearly 40 employees. The company is headquartered in Beaverton, Ore. For additional information, call (503) 646-8400 or visit www.easystreet.com.

On June 5, 2007, Secretary of State Bill Bradbury presented his global warming roadshow to interested EasyStreet customers. Shown above, Mr. Bradbury awards Rich Bader a certificate of thanks from PGE for becoming a gold-level Clean Wind partner. To read more about the event, go to EasyStreet's Business Blog.