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 customers on Tuesday 13 January, 2009.
Background
Historically, Athena never shut off the video display. A screen saver with the Athena logo enabled an operator to identify dead machines just by glancing into the room. A blank screen meant a broken system. When power saving became standard practice, Athena disabled the power save feature, fearing that people would be too used the Athena convention, "blank monitor means dead Athena Workstation".
The power consumed even by a low power LCD display is significant: We expect to save in excess of 75 MegaWattHours of electricity per year. (25 watts per monitor, 10 hours idle time, 900 systems, 365 days.)
The risk is that Athena users won't realize that a blank Athena screen no longer means a broken computer.
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 |
DONE |
1/8/09 |
jweiss |
Prototype |
Develop prototype of monitoring functionality using Nagios |
DONE |
1/8/09 |
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 |
CANCELLED |
wdc |
1/12/09 |
Cluster-Poster |
Create a poster for the Athena Clusters that reminds people that power save is now the norm. |
CANCELLED |
wdc |
1/12/09 |
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"." |
DONE |
1/13/09 |
amb |
Deploy-Patch |
Deploy patch release that re-enables video power save. |
DONE |
1/12/09 |
wdc |
Article |
Write a brief article publicizing the Athena video power save action taken. |
|
|
fizz |
Publish |
Publish the Article |
Amendments
We are going to see if we can get away with not consuming paper and people resources with making and deploying stickers on monitors and posters in clusters. Instead we'll watch to see if we have user confusion, or power-cycled systems, or a flurry of consultant or hotline calls.