The green frog from silicon valley

If you please, draw me a smart infrastructure

In the last post I described how the ICT industry is approaching sustainability and can help modernize our infrastructures. IBM announced recently $2B of new financing options available to its clients to accelerate smart infrastructure initiatives. The IBM Global Financing investment is slated for technology solutions in key economic stimulus areas, including Smart Grid, Health Information Technology and Broadband Access. Are these disparate programs put under a common marketing umbrella, like Cisco’s “human network” ad campaign, or representative of a more fundamental transformation? In short, what is a “smart infrastructure”?

It is commonly interpreted as a smart electrical power grid but there is more to it, and broadband connectivity is definitely a core component. If I were to attempt to define “smart infrastructure”, I would be tempted first to draw a few clouds, like if the Little Prince was standing next to me and asking me "draw me a sheep, if you please": live data are captured from sensors, information is exchanged using a broadband connection and processed by embedded chips or remote servers, active elements adjust to the environment and software applications allow the users to optimize their now "intelligent" infrastructure...

I first heard the concept on intelligent network infrastructure from the Research & Education (R&E) community who has been working on a new generation of network interaction tools that merge advanced sensor, computing, networking and visualization technologies to support Big Science projects. One of the most famous project is CERN’s Large Hadron Collider with its petabytes of data shared across supercomputers around the world.

Those technologies can also be useful to recover faster and prepare better for disasters like Hurricane Katrina. An article in the United Nations Chronicle first outlined in late 2004 the need of smart infrastructure for sustainable development and disaster preparedness, following the aftermath of the tsunami in South East Asia. Some of the R&E labs actually helped analyze images from disasters. In the picture below, Pr. Larry Smarr, one of the R&E leading figures and also known as the "grand father" of the Internet, is viewing a high resolution of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

      

The concept of smart infrastructure was later reprised by political leaders from Gov. Schwarzenegger, who has been leading California towards more sustainability, to Australian Sen. Conroy Australian who recently launched "down under" a whopping $43B national broadband network initiative. The Australian Government actually listed smart infrastructure as one of the benefits and took the example of a the St Anthony Falls bridge that was replaced with a new structure with thousands of sensors to monitor load and weather conditions after a fatal collapse in the Mississippi river in 2007.

In his recent remarks to defend his project, Sen. Conroy cited Pr. Smarr and commanded his vision to point out that "broadband and connected technologies will reshape the way we think about infrastructure management." He added that "smart infrastructure will be equipped with sensor technology to detect movement and deterioration. The information will be monitored constantly allowing better timed and targeted responses. It means better, more informed decisions can be made about safety and maintenance."

The ICT community would like to think that they invented the concept of smart infrastructure. When you think about it, a large portion of the ICT infrastructure is already automated: the Internet is an intelligent network that transfers bits of data efficiently; it heals from route changes and cable outages; it allows the number of users to grow organically without central control like a giant web, thus breaking away from the old Telco infrastructure model to unleash a new realm of possibilities. Good. The problem: it is not that smart as it relies on a largely manual physical infrastructure, and it consumes a lot of energy. So to be sustainable it must rely on a smart energy infrastructure, that itself must use ICT capabilities to reduce its carbon footprint…

The tight interaction between our infrastructures became clear to me when I talked a few weeks ago with a representative of Verizon who explained to me their sustainable initiatives. Those initiatives are substantial and Verizon was recently lauded by the Environment Defense Fund. He went further though, and made the argument that the network infrastructure is intelligent, and that other infrastructures are 20-30 years behind and could use a bit of help. That is probably true in America. But some other countries, in Scandinavia for instance, have more modern utilities and view broadband connectivity as a new commodity to provide to homes, much like water and electricity.

Bill St Arnaud also warns in his blog of the claims on energy efficient solutions, driven by cost saving concerns rather than sustainability goals. He argues that energy efficiency initiatives lower cost and ultimately increase demand, and therefore do not help fighting climate change. This is why the Canadian R&E community is looking at developing zero-carbon networks and data centers. Smart infrastructures should aim at significantly reducing carbon emission.

So isn't a smart infrastructure, after all, a set of infrastructures (energy, communication, transportation, building, etc.) interacting together to optimize productivity, improve well being and reduce carbon emission? That is closer to our end goal but we should talk then of "smart infrastructures". It is common for new trendy words to mean different things to different people as they become catch phrases to capture attention or to seek Government funding. Nanotechnology was the buzz word 4-5 years ago and took time to settle and define a new discipline. The significance of “smart infrastructures” will hence appear more clearly in time.

Move towards smart infrastructure

During Fortune’s Brainstorm: Green event I took part in a workshop on Sustainable IT. A key concept emerged during the session led by representatives from Microsoft, HP and Intel and moderated by Joel Makower from Green World Media: the notion of "smart infrastructure". All participants recognized the effort of the ICT industry to limit its carbon foot-print (a recent Gartner report estimates it at 2%) but the moderator reckoned that a larger opportunity might lay elsewhere. He asked the panel how they could help other industries: "What about the other 98%?"

         

Robert Bernard from Microsoft touched base on the role of software in sustainable IT. It is a core component to connect sensors, the grid, etc. He took the example of PG&E that announced the deployment of already 2.3 million smart meters to learn about consumption patterns, and to see what they can do with that information to reduce energy consumption from residential market (note from the Green Frog: PG&E currently provides a service to large business customers a number of energy saving programs. He stated that IT industry needed to be reinvented and that the “IP network” will become the “eP nework”.  For Microsoft the interest is of course to get their operating systems in more devices like electric cars. Operating systems can help manage GPS information for instance, and identify where the next recharging station is located.

Chandrakant Patel from HP Labs presented a service point of view. A lot of progress, he noted, can be made on delivering energy services based on needs vs. the old 24x7 regulated service paradigm. He stressed the importance of looking at the carbon foot-print through the whole life cycle: design -> manufacturing -> operation -> recycling. He took the example of an Indian person who does not have electricity now and could benefit from local renewable energies for basic activities and does not need a high quality service. His group is also looking at new multi-disciplinary approach to massage all the information captured from various clouds, look at patterns and find optimization. He mentioned a lot of what was developed in the Internet bubble can be leveraged, when dot.com companies and service providers looked at consumer buying patterns.

Lorie Wigle from Intel explained that is more than chips. Obviously “smarter” infrastructure means processing and chips, and that is why they are looking closely at it. But there is a need for a system based approach, standards and open interfaces to gather and process data, and policies. She mentioned the Digital Energy Solution campaign supported by large corporations and NGOs. They are now looking how ICT can impact other industries like the automobile industry. The alliance works on smart grid, green grid projects, etc.

The Q&A session provided the opportunity to discuss practical examples. Chandrakant explained how they sample thousands of sensors every 15 seconds and how over-provisioning could be reduced with smart sensing. Robert took the example of a refrigerator that will consume twice as much as energy months before it breaks; this could be averted now if it could declare itself to the network and be monitored.

Carl Bass from AutoDesk interjected that infrastructure optimization is good but that their experience is that most of the cost and the carbon foot-print is set in the design and manufacturing phase. The CEO of AutoDesk is therefore interested to develop product libraries with green information and green design rules. He took the example of reliability commonly used today: component modules have now a lot of data about this aspect and models have been developed to create reliable products. There is no longer a need to test and crash a car to optimize its design.

Bob Bernard argued that one still needs sensors to capture the data needed to develop those models. The challenge is not much technical – most technologies are there - but behavioral. How to capture and manage all these information made possible by IT network capacities and large computing processing powers? That is the interesting part; networks will become more “human”.

The CEO of Johnston Control, also present at the workshop, concurred that a lot could be done now. A lot of infrastructure like airports has already access to a lot of information from sensors. Yet, not much has been done with it. He took the example the Empire State Building, which they helped retrofit with control systems. The building is now using 30% less energy and the upgrade cost will pay for itself in 3 years.

Joel Makower concluded the workshop by stating that there is an enormous opportunity to rebuild the infrastructure in a better way. The panel highlighted a number of areas but came short of defining what a smart infrastructure is. I will address this question in my next post before digging into the historical significance of the move towards a smart infrastructure.