The Green Network: Energy-efficiency Targets for New Infrastructure – Panel Discussion

0:00 foreign [Music]

0:08 the Telecom TV Summit on the green Network and our panel discussion on

0:14 Energy Efficiency targets for new infrastructure I'm Guy Daniels director

0:19 of content when sourcing new infrastructure equipment what emphasis should telcos

0:25 place on energy consumption and efficiency and what work is still required to ensure that energy efficient

0:32 infrastructure is available to all telcos great and small well with the

0:38 help of our guests we are going to find out and joining me today are Irene Zhang

0:44 who is director product marketing Cloud Metra and security at Juniper Networks

0:50 Beth Cohen who is sdn product strategies at Verizon

0:55 Mark Gilmore CTO for connectivity Europe and Toyo e Big B who is VP Innovation

1:04 and strategy energy at American Tower hello everyone very good to see you all

1:09 thanks so much for taking part in our discussion so how important is Energy

1:16 Efficiency as a criteria for selecting new infrastructure and Equipment not

1:22 just in the power hungry radio elements but throughout the network how does it stack up against other purchasing

1:29 criteria Mark perhaps we could get your views on this first thank you very much

1:35 guy um actually this is really really pertinent to to us right now uh in

1:40 connectivity because um we are building a new company we're building a new network and so this is first and

1:48 foremost in in our thoughts um I suppose my first point to note is

1:54 we're building out a uh a new data transport Network for you know across

2:01 um International borders one of the things we've been um focused on is first of all you kind

2:08 of look at the the functionality and the capability um of uh of network equipment vendors

2:15 Etc but then very quickly we're looking at the environmental impact

2:22 um the Energy Efficiency for example and that's twofold one from our own ESG sort

2:29 of targets and our and our our our function really I suppose

2:34 there's a new company coming new in into into the industry and you know new into

2:40 the into the the global industry as such um so we've got that on on one side but

2:45 also um there is a cost implication there is a cost there is a uh an operating cost

2:52 uh point to that and so really we're looking at it twofold um first of all we've got to nail the

2:59 the form the functionality um and and capability and then it

3:04 becomes very quickly a uh a criteria selection for us in terms of power

3:10 efficiency for cost and to also meet our own uh EST policies and targets that

3:17 we're setting thanks Mark that sounds that's encouragingly high up the agenda there Beth um from Verizon's perspective you know

3:24 are we seeing Energy Efficiency as one of the the key purchasing criteria now apps absolutely it's one of our key

3:31 purchasing criteria you know we are focused one of our major goals you know

3:37 we have a number of strategic goals and and part of our mission statement is to

3:43 be energy efficient and to be you know give back to the planet and that includes you know reducing our our

3:50 carbon footprint and and reducing our energy consumption you know and and

3:56 um as was previously mentioned you know obviously cost affects it as well

4:02 um but we are looking at you know when we look at equipment we're looking at

4:08 the the energy footprint as part of the equation you know that goes right into our rfps

4:14 thank you very much Beth and Toyo what are you seeing here over at American

4:22 Tower absolutely I think um the Beth and Mark covered the points quite well I

4:28 think the Early Edition I would add is you know we're in an interesting point when you think about the clarification

4:33 of the networks the rise of data consumption and significant amounts if

4:39 you look at the average consumption per user a couple years ago maybe it was about two to three gigabytes per month

4:45 and that's hovering north of 30 40 in some instances that's driving the need

4:50 for a lot of power intensity as core customers like our mobile network

4:56 operators deploy you know these five generation or 5G networks across our

5:02 portfolio and so when you couple that with the key points that I've mentioned earlier which are cost and also the need

5:08 to become Greener and more sustainable you've got this perfect situation

5:14 aware the need for Energy Efficiency all across the value chain of telecommunications infrastructure

5:19 becomes more poignant and pertinent than it's ever been you know in my career in telecoms

5:26 well that's that's great thanks very much Toyo and Irene um from the the vendor perspective you give us a

5:33 different perspective on this um are you seeing the requirements for Energy Efficiency increasing absolutely

5:39 so um for ifp Energy Efficiency has always been um there for the past five

5:46 ten years however in the past that is more of a checklist item but what we see

5:52 over the last two three years it actually becomes a critical criteria

5:57 where if the vendor is not providing specific numbers then even though the

6:04 overall solution maybe even cheaper or have lower cost of ownership it will

6:10 still not proceed to the next step for the the bid process thanks Cyrene and in fact I'd like to

6:17 stay with you now because I want to I want to ask whether or not you're seeing um well let's look at different Hardware

6:23 we have lots of different Hardware in our networks they're all different Hardware got different energy requirements but do we collectively have

6:31 an agreed letter of power usage for new equipment you know do we as an industry

6:37 put a figure on this yet um from what we see we haven't seen like agree upon number yet and in fact I

6:45 would argue that it's it really needs to have a number for uh same category so we

6:51 can't compare apples to Orange and an analogy that I like to use is when we

6:57 think about home let's say a smart home you have different appliances same thing that in your network infrastructure you

7:03 have different equipment across different domains and when you look at

7:09 each individual equipment so let's say in your home your refrigerator versus your TV versus your coffee makers those

7:17 are just by default they are going to consume different levels of energy so putting a same number uh to to them

7:25 would not make sense now it makes sense when you are comparing let's say refrigerator versus refrigerator from

7:32 different vendor or TV versus TV right so that is um how we see that and it

7:39 will make sense moving forward to have the industry to have some agree upon number uh for the same category of

7:45 solutions yeah so we could do the number but we've got to make sure this is category

7:50 specific thanks Irene uh Mark what are your views on this

7:56 um well Irene's absolutely correct in the the there isn't a kind of like a a standard that I can look to and say yep

8:03 that I can tick against that um what we have seen for example though

8:08 is sometimes um vendors are trying to use um comparative statements like um or or

8:16 trying to trying to um put in some sort of relative scale

8:21 um cost uh sorry power per bit is used in in that but you know those can be

8:27 misleading um be if I look for example um at the the network that we're

8:34 building if I was to build that on on equipment that was say 10 years old or

8:39 five years old um using that generation of equipment then the cost per bet or the power per bit

8:47 um would be considerably higher um actually look we've done some studies looking at it for example the reduction

8:54 level can be as much as 85 percent in terms of the power consumption per bit

9:00 transported however the that only comes into play when the equipment is fully

9:08 utilized um and otherwise that that power per bit figure can can really ramp up very

9:16 quickly if the the network is not being fully utilized uh at that point so

9:21 there's there's there's attempts being made but uh but it's still not we're not there in

9:28 terms of having a clear guidance clear way of of looking at it um uh

9:34 comparatively and robustly um and I think verifiably

9:40 um I've in my uh studies on this in my learning on this you know I've come

9:45 across this term investor grade um carbon accounting and um

9:52 yeah I think that's difficult to get to and I'm used to the carrier grade sort of approach well you know there's this

9:58 accountability side of it as well oh very interesting Mark we've always

10:03 got to read the small print very very carefully here as the as to um what we're actually getting

10:10 um Beth let's come across to you for for some thoughts on this yeah I'd like to to address it a little more broadly you

10:17 know I I'm very familiar with the you know in the US we have the energy star system you know which you know when you

10:23 go into a store and you you see an array of refrigerators each one has a has a

10:29 number you know the average the average amount of money you'll spend on on uh you know this Appliance running and uh

10:36 that would be great if we could get to that with you know the Telco

10:42 um support infrastructure um however I think um it's a little more difficult because

10:47 it's not a unit right um you know the infrastructure is yeah there's there's you know there's server boxes which are

10:54 virtualized you know running virtualized services and obviously the cloud is

10:59 gener you know is has reduce the carbon footprint print correct you know significantly and as Mark mentioned it's

11:06 all about being efficient right that's that's what you know that virtualization Trend really was all about you know

11:14 reducing the amount of of idle spinning discs and idle and idle um CPUs and um

11:22 so that that's just one aspect of it but you know anybody who's familiar with how

11:27 data centers work know that the majority of the power is spent on cooling

11:34 um the the you know the systems and and so uh I think there's a lot of things

11:40 that need to be um looked at and optimized to get to

11:47 that power per bit um and then be able to standardize

11:52 across the industry so you know that that's where I think the standards bodies really need to step in uh to you

12:00 know as an industry across the industry to to work together to create those

12:05 standards and to and to create the the mechanisms for reducing those footprints

12:11 okay thanks very much Beth and Toyo did you want to come in on this particular talking point as well

12:17 sure I mean Beth just actually hit the point that that was uh resonating with me which is the the value chain I like

12:24 the the fact that she emphasized you know cooling being a core component for you know Cloud networks or data center

12:30 operations and so as we think about in 3gpp the standards body for telecommunications and you know networks

12:38 as you will today has done a fantastic job with you know thinking about Energy Efficiency from a radio Access Network

12:45 perspective but the point that I think was very poignant and I think both Mark and Beth hit on this is as you think

12:51 about the entire value chain if you think about the energy star it looks at scope emissions and it looks at you know

12:58 all the different component parts that go into making a refrigerator or television and I think we need to start

13:04 you know evolving to that um Paradigm within the Telecommunications where we

13:09 start thinking about you know what are the cooling uh requirements and how do the you know manufacturers that

13:15 participate in that space you know sink and align with the sustainability and

13:21 cost efficiency goals that telecommunications networks now require thank you very much Toya thanks everyone

13:28 for for those comments well we've been focusing so far on hardware for new

13:34 infrastructure but is the energy use of software also being considered in the

13:40 same way as out of Hardware infra Beth I know the issue of software is very close

13:46 to your heart what what do you say uh the short answer is I don't even

13:52 think it's on anybody's Horizon but it should be

13:57 um because uh software efficiency software developers do not think in terms of oh if I write this code it will

14:04 it will you know reduce the power consumption uh but they uh and and we

14:10 don't even really have the tools to allow them to even take that into consideration I mean I'll I'll give you

14:17 an example it applies to Edge as well and and the use of the network more efficiently which again is going to

14:24 drive down power consumption um to to make sure that the the that you

14:30 the software does the work in the appropriate place in the network

14:35 um will you know reduce the amount of of well it'll reduce the latency it'll reduce you know improve customer

14:42 experience with the software but it will also reduce the the power you know the

14:47 carbon footprint it's same time and and I think we just haven't even gotten to

14:53 the starting point at this point with with in that discussion uh you know

14:59 virtualization is certainly you know a component but um you know from the software developers perspectives it's

15:07 not even on the roadmap yet thank you Beth that's you know it's so disappointing to hear from an industry

15:13 perspective that you know haven't even got the tools yet to be able to uh address this Mark

15:18 um what about you do you believe the the use of um Energy Efficiency in software

15:23 is being considered in the same way as Hardware yet uh I I agree with Beth on this one um no I I don't think it's

15:31 truly being covered just yet um there's a slight irony that in the world of virtualization as we you know we Beth

15:39 mentioned it earlier you you utilize you disaggregate the software into Hardware spin down

15:46 um you know an unused hardware for example but then if we've got an inefficient code

15:52 um and software that's that's running inefficiently then taking that power

15:58 saving that's been made by spinning the hardware down and then actually the the software is running in more

16:03 inefficiently then essentially you lose that Advantage but I think it's also

16:08 very much work workload they're dependent and I think an application and sometimes we need to be careful as

16:16 operators as as end users of these services to say actually do we really

16:21 need such power intensive applications or software to do a task

16:27 um that my example here would be you know AIML driven applications you know I think the the

16:35 the the consideration question that needs to be to be raised there is do I

16:40 actually really need to run AI to do this application or is it something that's kind of

16:46 good it brings a benefit but is actually the benefit outweighing because you're actually having to it's quite a power

16:53 intensive sort of workload um I don't think those questions are being potentially considered at the

17:01 moment um and I think that's part of the the the ongoing discussion hence why we have

17:07 these sort of summits to bring these points up yeah indeed thanks Mark and uh there's

17:12 tough decisions there isn't it when you when you look at the benefits and you've got to you've got to weigh them all up um well you know moving on from software

17:19 to the cloud we touched on the cloud earlier in our discussion um as we see more increase in the use of

17:26 public Cloud by telcos how does this usage affect energy and in this

17:32 situation what control if any does a Telco have over the the energy usage the

17:39 power usage of power output of of the cloud providers uh Beth what are your

17:44 thoughts so so sadly the cloud providers hold all the cards in this regard

17:49 because of course they're running the data centers there and and you know I will hand them Kudos in that they are in

17:56 fact um cognizant of the of the power their

18:01 power requirements and and are you know active in reducing uh their power needs

18:09 as much as possible but the you know our interaction as a Telco with

18:14 these with these Cloud providers is that we're just consumers of those services and so we have little or no say in you

18:23 know in their efficiencies and their power consumption reduction

18:31 um our only way that we could possibly affect it is you know harking back to

18:37 the previous question related to software we you know can we write more

18:43 efficient software that will you know has a reduced footprint and and I think

18:49 that's our only leverage in in terms of supporting uh the reduced power

18:56 consumption in in with the cloud providers you know obviously we maintain our own data centers uh with our own

19:03 clouds and and you know within those clouds of course the private clouds we do have control but the public clouds we

19:11 don't no thank you Beth uh Toyo what's your views about how the increase in

19:17 public Cloud usage is affecting energy usage from tokos I think um Beth hit the

19:23 right points in terms of thinking about the fact that the current Riders are working actively to mitigate their

19:30 energy uh consumption in fact I read uh recently one of the big hyperscaler

19:35 cloud providers uh decided to run their service a little harder to to reduce you

19:40 know the cooling intensity required to to keep those servers up and running so

19:46 those are just some of the techniques that are being used by the cloud providers to help increase Energy

19:52 Efficiency I think when you look at it broader I think one of the key things

19:57 that I'm seeing is this microcosms of activities taking place towards Energy Efficiency I think Mark pointed out

20:04 Point raised that alluded to that point earlier what he mentioned you know you see Power per bit but the way it's

20:11 looked within the cloud networks is a little different from the way that a radio Access Network may look at you

20:17 know the power Energy Efficiency and so one of the things that I think we could do is is really bring some of these key

20:24 stakeholders together as we think about you know the virtualizations of the networks the cloudification of the

20:30 Telecommunications networks how we can bring these key stakeholders together to expand the scope of how we currently

20:37 look at uh telecoms infrastructure and architecture and I think by you know sort of expanding the scope and bringing

20:43 these key stakeholders that historically a sort of stayed on their you know swim Lanes of ones and zeros can potentially

20:50 help you know increase the overall Energy Efficiency and performance that we see in telecommunications networks

20:56 today yeah thanks to you you absolutely right we we're doing this collaboration in order to understand each other when the

21:03 angles you know where we all come from um Mark I'll come to you in a moment but first um let's hear from Irene and your

21:10 thoughts on this yeah so um I agree with Bev that well there are not many control that Telco have but I

21:17 would say in addition to choosing more um efficient software another thing to

21:23 consider is to look at the nature of the application workload and choose the cloud instance that match the the best

21:31 with the workload and that way that also would improve the efficiency uh the

21:36 Energy Efficiency of of those application because think about it when

21:41 you have let's say fully loaded Hardware if it's same performance the hardware is

21:48 almost always high more efficient than software and the reason being that you

21:53 have the processors the equipment actually optimized to that workflow now

21:58 when it comes to software those are general purpose um CPU but if if you pick certain

22:06 processors and instance that are actually better suited for certain type

22:12 of application then you will get closer benefits to as if you are running the

22:18 the dedicated Hardware so so that is another things to consider oh good points thanks very much Aaron

22:24 for that uh and Mark let's hear from you on this issue of public Cloud use thank

22:30 you um I think if I was being disingenuous I would say as an operator it's kind of not my problem because

22:36 basically I've offloaded that that problem to the public Cloud providers

22:42 and and it becomes a scope three emission for me but ultimately that's not going to solve the general problems

22:50 that we have so in reality what that means is exactly what the what my fellow

22:55 panelists have kind of um brought up is we start developing then how we

23:01 um utilize power more efficiently in those environments but as an I'm not in the

23:09 Data Centers Market or space but it is interesting that the way that data centers are um and and the cloud is some

23:17 sort of referred to all the new data centers as they come on stream is they're spoken of in terms of their

23:23 power capability you know into the megawatts in terms of

23:28 how large a data center it is um and then that's an ever increasing

23:34 scale uh I think one of the the key drivers that needs to happen in that space is actually

23:41 um well Renewables are an absolute table Stakes for for data center space and when we are looking to purchase data

23:48 center space you know that's a key criteria we're looking at um going back to the first question

23:54 um really in terms of what are the data centers providers doing in terms of their supply even though it isn't a

24:01 direct impact on my scope one scope two emissions it is on scope three and my

24:06 overall contribution as a as an operator into the industry

24:11 um but uh I think one of the key movements that that is happening and needs to happen is for

24:19 um data centers to have direct access to the to renewable sources rather than just through the the grid uh and we've

24:27 seen examples of that starting to come up come on stream and I think that's a critical part of the overall industry

24:32 history becoming more of a green Network yeah great thank you very much Mark and

24:37 we've we heard earlier in in the summit about taking responsibility across the whole ecosystem across all Supply chains

24:43 as well um Beth let's come across to you for some additional thoughts on this

24:52 I know that the providers example of a cloud provider that stood

24:58 up their data center next to a Hydro Dam so you know so it was cheap you know

25:05 clean energy unfortunately it was nowhere near the Telco

25:10 um networks so that Dana Center um you know has has struggled to because

25:18 of because of its location so that's something that um you know the telcos are probably more

25:24 aware of than the than the um Cloud providers about that the the need to

25:31 have the data centers close to population centers uh you know for

25:36 latency purposes and for efficiency of the network

25:41 um and that you cannot put a data center in the middle of a place that's not well served by by the telcos indeed thanks

25:49 Beth it's complicated uh set of equations you talkers have got to work on here to to balance all this up and

25:55 make it work and make it as energy efficient as possible um which brings us on to our last

26:01 question really and we we've to an extent we've covered elements of this earlier but what work is still required

26:07 by the industry as a whole to ensure that energy efficient infrastructure is

26:13 available and not just to a handful of turkos but to all telcos Toyo let me

26:19 come across to you to start us off please absolutely and I think you're right to say that a lot of a lot of the

26:25 the work that needs to be done we've touched on In Pockets during the discussion earlier you know I'll break

26:31 it down into three points at least from my vantage point I think the first one you know really pertains to you know

26:38 setting standard holistic standards and metrics and targets that not just are

26:44 applicable in microcosms like we discussed earlier I think Mark alluded to that but across the entire ecosystem

26:50 of telecommunications infrastructure you know I think there's nothing more motivating than a North star to keep key

26:58 stakeholders working in Tandem and in synchronicity to be able to achieve our Energy Efficiency goals while also

27:04 making sure that these um these solutions that we deploy are you know close to carbon neutral as possible

27:11 because we also have you know sustainability targets and Ambitions as well I think the second point is really

27:18 around the ecosystem or the VA the value chain and you know you could look at it from a combination of both hardware and

27:25 software and because of you know infrastructure supplier to the mobile network operators I'll take it from the

27:32 hardware perspective and we've seen that you know I love the example that bet you know mentioned earlier you know cooling

27:38 for example being a huge component of the whole power efficiency utilization for data centers and so being able to

27:45 think about all the different Hardware components that go to supporting the network stack the network infrastructure

27:50 and being able to bring those key providers vendors suppliers to bear so that they all align

27:58 towards making sure that the systems that we deploy at the edge you know at the base station of a macro Network or

28:05 even at the end user device are more energy efficient more cost effective and

28:11 overall optimal for our Network and ambition needs and the last one is really around the end user I think

28:18 there's a piece that we haven't really covered today in this discussion is there's a proliferation of devices as

28:24 the network expands you think about 5G you think about you know iot you think

28:30 about you know network of networks and all that means is more devices more

28:35 needs for data and more needs for energy to help propagate the electromagnetic

28:40 frequencies that go to those devices at least wirelessly or even wired vis-a-vis Optical networks for for transport like

28:46 fiber and I think what role are the you know end user device manufacturers also

28:52 playing to make those those those um phones and computers and and and and

28:58 sensors more energy efficient uh more in tandem with the networks that are being

29:03 deployed today such that you know you could have an overall efficient energy infrastructure as you advance and evolve

29:11 within Telecom so you know it's a combination of those 3D end users the value chain as well as some of the

29:17 standards that could drive you know the first two that I mentioned I think will really go a long way in getting us to a

29:22 more energy efficient telecommunications landscape in the future great nice summary Toyota and uh you're

29:28 absolutely right about the need for that end-to-end efficiency across the whole of telecoms uh anybody else like to make

29:36 some final comments on what we can do as an industry to to improve the situation

29:41 Irene let me come to you yeah so uh on that question about the

29:47 making energy efficient infrastructure accessible to uh telcos I think one

29:53 thing that we also think about is change require business case and for

30:00 transitioning to energy efficient infrastructure does require investment so when it comes to best's case it the

30:08 industry can do I would say two things one is for the early adopters that when

30:14 adopting the energy efficient infrastructure for different domains different parts of the network document

30:20 them and share what was the before and after in terms of Energy savings um business outcomes and those numbers

30:27 will be tremendously helpful for other telcos to use it as a business case

30:33 and second is also consider for industry Center body to collaborate with

30:39 government to seek if there's any incentive uh maybe even tax credits

30:45 something like that they can help um operators uh perhaps real operators

30:50 that make the initial investment easier to get started good points thank you

30:56 Irene for those and we'll go across to Mark as well for for comments on on what

31:02 we can do to make the situation better one of the interesting things we can do actually is work is work better together

31:08 as as an industry um actually in in

31:13 um more efficiently using our networks because there's a there's a there's a

31:21 there's a baseline power requirement that is run that isn't required to run a network

31:27 um and it you know incrementally adding on adding capacity into that particularly in Myspace which is which

31:33 is the the kind of the wholesale large back home um uh Market

31:39 um so International back home Market um utilizing and maximizing the the the uh

31:46 network capacity in those really makes uh a powerful difference to the efficiency

31:52 um and then the other thing that I'd like to bring out is and we've touched upon it in the session is is

31:58 um the real verifiable and and traceable sort of metrics uh that uh that can be

32:03 used one of the things that I've uh as we build our company and as we build our

32:09 network is that we're where we have aspirations well we had aspirations actually to look to try and be Net Zero

32:15 from from day one not not achievable one because it's difficult to actually

32:22 measure and account for that and and also we touched on that scope three sort

32:27 of um uh console just don't have but um but certainly as a company we can be

32:33 carbon neutral um from day one but that requires very tight and accountable carbon accounting

32:40 to be able able to bring that in and that's so these are the measures that we

32:46 need to bring in and understand across the networks across the industry um and and then feedback in and one of

32:54 the things that I just I learned from this session actually I think Beth mentioned it but interestingly to see if

32:59 we can actually run our equipment at slightly higher temperatures to to reduce down the cooling required I mean

33:06 that's a conversation for us to have with the uh with the uh with the vendor Community because that could make a

33:13 significant difference it certainly could and it's just another great example of the The Innovation that comes out of this industry that we

33:18 sometimes Overlook that can that can help us in these these situations and you mentioned you know the the problems

33:24 with measuring and monitoring we had a whole panel session earlier in the summit about that and it is so

33:30 incredibly difficult now we must leave it there thank you all so much for taking part in our discussion today and

33:37 sharing all of your views if you're watching this on day three of

33:42 the green Network Summit and please do send us your questions and we'll answer as many of them as we can in our live q

33:49 a show and that is coming up very shortly don't forget to view the other panel discussions and interviews in this

33:56 year's Summit but for now thank you for watching and goodbye foreign

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