Plan of Action and Milestones (POAM): Athena Video Power Save
Summary Status
The patch to the Athena Release to re-enable video power save went to review on 12/9/08.
Background
Historically, the Athena Release ran a screen saver with the Athena logo, and never shut off the video display. This enabled an operator to identify dead machines just by glancing into the room. Any system neither in use nor displaying the screen saver was in need of attention.
When the base OS began powering off the video monitors, Athena disabled the power save feature,
fearing that people would be too used to "blank monitor means dead Athena Workstation".
Nowadays, the power consumed by a video display, even a low power LCD display is significant:
A back of the envelope calculation assuming 1000 machines, 10
hours of idle time per machine, and 25 w saved by powering them off,
adds up to about 100 MegaWattHours per year. Actual monitors in
the field consume more than 25 watts, except for ones purchased this year which consume about 20 watts.
Action Plan
- Re-enable the power saving feature from the base OS.
- Work with Athena Hotline Team to provide additional monitoring tools so that a visit to the room to glance at the monitors to identify unhealthy ones is no longer necessary.
- Publicise the change to:
- Help people remember that Athena systems no behave like the other systems and power save.
- Alert others to this small energy and cost saving action.
Risks/Mitigation
Task List
Status | Date | Owner | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
DONE | 9/?/08 | wdc | Preliminary-chat | Discuss with Hotline team ramifications of re-enabling video power save. |
DONE | 9/24/08 | wdc | Proposal | Write proposal to stake holders to take action to re-enable video power save |
DONE | 10?/08 | wdc | Inventory | Inventory present monitoring functionality available to Hotline |
|
| wdc | Gap-analysis | Identify gap between present monitoring and desired monitoring for Hotline |
|
| jweiss | Prototype | Develop prototype of monitoring functionality using Nagios |
|
| wdc | Present | Present prototype of monitoring functionality to Hotline |
DONE | 12/17/08 | jweiss/amb | write-patch | Write Path to Athena release that re-enables power save of displays |
Not-Started |
|
| Cluster-Poster | Create a poster for the Athena Clusters that reminds people that power save is now the norm. |
Not-Started |
|
| Green-Sticker | Create a little green sticker to apply to Athena monitors saying, "Athena now power saves. Move the mouse or press a key to wake the machine"." |
Pending | 12/17/08 | amb | Deploy-Patch | Deploy patch release that re-enables video power save. |
|
| wdc | Spotlight | Write a brief article publicizing the Athena video power save action taken. |