Carbon Footprints

Apparently, someone is concerned with Google searches:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10140142-54.html

Now, why are they focusing on Google? I mean, how many hits a day does Amazon.com get? Why pick on Google? What about MSN.com? (I would ask about Live Search but chances are not enough people bother using that for it to matter as far as power consumption.)

I recall a while back reading about how choosing the wrong datatypes can lead to a performance impact on your queries. I dug up this article by Greg Larsen: http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3718066/Disk-Space-Usage-and-SQL-Server-Performance.htm. It is worth more than one read and something every DBA should reference the next time a developer asks why you are being so anal about datatypes. Better yet, print it out, roll it up, and smack them in the back of the head with it and leave it on their desk. Maybe then they will get the message about database design. Far too often I am told “the database design work is already done” before our team is even involved. The end result? Tables that can be hundreds of GBs in size, mostly due to the difference in smalldatetime and regular datetime datatypes which seems to be an easily misunderstood concept.

But, hey, if performance is acceptable, should I care? Well, I care about Mother Earth! So perhaps I should start out meetings by asking “who here does not care about the environment?” Or, better yet “does your manager know you do not care about Mother Earth?” So, forget the normalization versus denormalization debate, instead we should focus on answering a simple question “What is the carbon footprint for this design?”

How do you measure the carbon footprint? I have no idea. Something about power. I honestly think it is something that is made up in order to scare people into being more conscious about the environment. Honestly, should I stop using Google to search for information? You might as well tell me to stop brushing my teeth, or taking showers, in order to conserve water. In fact, perhaps we should all move to a shack in the middle of Montana.

Now, where am I going with all of this? Good question. I never really know. But I think what I want to point out is that a poor database design can have effects in places that you would not expect. It could be performance, it could be storage, and apparently it also affects Mother Earth. It should be possible to measure the extra I/O, convert that to a measure of power supply, and calculate a carbon footprint (if anyone knows what that really means). Good luck and let me know what you find out.

But what I really think is happening here is the obfuscation of the issues at hand. Are we, as humans, using the resources of our planet at such a rate they will be completely gone? I suppose so, but I really don’t know. I do know that at one time there was a great debate over how big the population of the Earth could ever become. The argument was essentially “there are only enough resources for a certain number” versus “the more people, the more brainpower, the more efficient we will become at growing food, and we will be able to sustain more”. I could not find a link to the debate, which might be the result of it having been a bacon-induced dream while in philosophy class in college, but this link is close to the idea.

And what about costs in the Cloud? Would you really want your business to be so dependent upon the Cloud that your rates increased, even doubled, in one month simply because your cloud provider has decided to “go Green”? Or would you rather have your head in the sand and tell people you have no carbon footprint, but the truth of the matter is that your Cloud provider is bulldozing their way through the Amazon and you are oblivious to the effects. Can you imagine if the price of Cloud computing was just like gasoline, and fluctuated daily? Well, guess what, it very well could be the case one day.

So, enjoy the good times while they last, keep your head in the sand, and keep Googling for whatever you need.