2024.02.27

[seanmcilroy29]

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2024.02.27 Agenda/Minutes

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Time 0800 / 1600 (BST) - See the time in your timezone

• Chair – Adrian Cockcroft
• Chair - Pindy Bhullar (UBS)
• Convener – Sean Mcilroy (Linux Foundation)

Antitrust Policy

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If you have questions about these matters, please contact your company counsel or counsel to the Joint Development Foundation, DLA Piper.

Recordings

WG agreed to record all Meetings. This meeting recording will be available until the next scheduled meeting.

Roll Call

Please add 'Attended' to this issue during the meeting to denote attendance.

Any untracked attendees will be added by the GSF team below:

• Full Name, Affiliation, (optional) GitHub username

Agenda

• Approve agenda
• Approve previous Meeting Minutes

Renewable Energy Percentage

• Defining language for the column headers

Action Item: Members requested to assist in defining column headers GSF Real-Time Cloud Renewable Energy Percentage spreadsheet

Open Issues Project Board

• Cloud provider Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) generation locations as an Impact Framework dataset #20
• Windows Energy Estimation Tool #19
• What are the use cases for real time power and carbon intensity information? #12
• How can cloud regions be mapped to electricity grids for carbon metrics? #7
• How can energy data collection and reporting be implemented by a cloud provider? #4
• What should the real time cloud standard be called? #2

Discussion Board

• Review miro dataflow in detail
  • Continue to review and approve the proposed Scope.

Milestone Objective

• Outline of proposed milestone dates

AOB

• Any topics members would like to submit

Next Meeting

• 12th Mar

Adjourn

• Motion to adjourn

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Meeting Action Items / Standing Agenda / Future Agenda submissions / Links

• The current sheet of raw data is here - this contains guesses for current ranges and is a work in progress at this point
  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RKjD4CuI5bd7JTj-9Mi1-ZhTIc6OW7TH9hUvLPbLsPA/edit?usp=sharing

[seanmcilroy29]

Attended

Attendees

• Alexander Kroll
• Chris Adams
• Henry Richardson
• Cooper Elsworth
• Tim Smolcic
• Adrian Cockcroft
• Vincent Poncet

[adrianco]

Attended

[seanmcilroy29]

MoM

Meeting Recording.

Action Items

• Members to review and comment on the RTC Cloud Region Impact Framework Documentation
• Add a column for Google's 24/7 carbon intensity data once it is approved for publishing.
• Members requested to assist in defining column headers GSF Real-Time Cloud Renewable Energy Percentage spreadsheet
• Fill in missing data columns in the spreadsheet, including PUE data and IEA annual average numbers.
• Get the spreadsheet definitions finalized to start filling in the data. Clarify column names and descriptions.
• Review and comment on Scope Flow

Standardizing cloud provider data for carbon emissions tracking.
The group discuss the efforts made by cloud providers to reduce their carbon emissions. During the discussion, they focused on Google's API. It was suggested that they should identify standardized sources for cloud carbon footprint data. It was proposed that they establish a standard for collecting data on power usage in the cloud. They plan to start with a small ask to get data on an annual basis from each of the three major cloud providers. Tim outlines he’s been conducting monthly sessions with sustainability product owners from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to get their input on the data and establish pathways for requesting it. The group discuss working towards a more efficient and sustainable future for cloud computing.

Carbon footprint and sustainability in cloud computing.
Adrian discusses challenges with estimating a company's carbon footprint, including issues with data quality and the need for better models to reflect optimizations. Adrian and Tim are analysing cloud provider data on power generation and carbon intensity, focusing on data centres and workload levels. They have identified various data sources and methods for measuring carbon footprint, including PPA, carbon intensity, and embodied carbon schema definition.

Collecting and analysing power consumption data in data centres.
The team discussed power consumption in data centres and expressed interest in exploring the topic further. Tim suggests using management consoles in the data centre to gather power statistics, which Adrian agrees to look into. The group discuss the difficulty of obtaining real-time power data for every machine in a cloud environment. Adrian suggests it may be a lot of work for cloud providers to collect and share this data. Tim suggests there may be existing telemetry data that could be surfaced to customers, but it's unclear who collects this data or how it's stored.

Carbon emissions and energy usage in cloud computing.
The Group discusses the complexity of cloud providers' carbon footprint calculations, including different metrics and data sources. Adrian: Google's effective carbon intensity is 354, based on hourly data from electricity maps. Adrian and Vincent discuss using a cloud provider region to obtain relevant metadata for carbon intensity calculations. The group agrees to use a document to determine the appropriate metadata for an impact framework.

Carbon emissions metrics and reporting.
Adrian discusses carbon intensity and data availability for energy reporting. The group discuss the importance of aligning on net zero definitions in the carbon market. The team discuss the naming conventions for carbon metrics, focusing on clarity and consistency.