By Mike Gala & Sikander Chatha, Comcast Cable
In-rack assets in datacenters and other critical facilities continue to contribute significantly to the energy usage at cable companies. SCTE•ISBE has championed Energy 2020 as an Energy Management Program to provide cable system operators with the new standards, technology innovation, organizational solutions, and training desired to drive continued cable telecommunications network growth, availability, and reliability. While there is a lot of excitement for a new product/application launch and deployment of assets, decommissioning has been an afterthought for many organizations. Instead, companies have been focused on delivery of new projects to optimize service delivery and revenue. With advancements in technology many compute, storage, and networking assets are able to increase their useful lifespan to 510 years for certain non-demanding or legacy workloads. This results in little desire or incentive for the planning of asset retirement. New assets and infrastructure have always been priority, and organizations have been squeezing every last drop of productivity out of their assets, extending the asset lifecycle well beyond the manufacturer’s End of Service Life (EOSL) dates.
Cable system operators can significantly and immediately impact their bottom lines by deploying solutions that can reduce data center power needs and increase energy efficiency, according to a presentation at the Smart Energy Management Initiative (SEMI) forum by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE).
At Comcast NBCUniversal, teams hold themselves accountable to be environmentally responsible. Kicking off a proactive asset decommissioning program was a step in the right direction to help achieve our asset retirement and sustainability goals. This technical paper will highlight how we were able to apply a renewed focus on asset retirement and how this helped with keeping our utility bill flat in 2019/2020