Combating The Developing Energy & Environmental Costs Of Data Centres

If data centres were planes, they would be huge fuel burning jumbo jets

, releasing masses of carbon into the atmosphere every time they fly.

The standard data centre can consume a similar quantity of power as a small town which proves to be a rather considerable carbon footprint. This is rather distressing for data centre managers (DCMs) who are constantly looking for new ways to keep their energy expenditure and costs to a minimum.

The fact is data centres will never be truly environmentally friendly. The requirement for computing power continues to rise as the internet drives the economy. The web hosting industry is making major improvements to energy efficiency however it will take a number of years, and then there is still no assurance that all of this intense activity will transform into real reductions of carbon emissions.

The need for energy efficiency has become very important. But it is still not considered one of the most important factors: there is the need to think about how we can use energy more intelligently and how we can make best use of the of the existing IT infrastructures that are in place.

The first step into improving the energy efficiency of data centres is to conduct a thorough energy consumption audit, as this allows data centre managers to gain a true picture of how much energy they are using and locate the largest areas that generate costs. Once a clear picture of their energy expenditure has been developed good business practices can be easily applied.

Profit and Loss budget responsibility can be given to data centre managers for the power consumption of their data centre. It may well seem very obvious but a large number of IT departments do not know the extent of their energy bills as electricity costs are simply absorbed into the businesses overall running costs. If the data centres energy costs can be identified and directly allocated then DCMs will be more proactive to manage and reduce them. Although this originally may not seem of great benefit to the data centre manager, by tracking the costs incurred it enables energy costs to be allocated departments using their services. A marketing manager may think a differently about operating 6 separate web development servers if the power costs for running them were associated to his department and came directly of his budget!

Other factors worth looking at include simple steps such as switching off under-utilised or unused equipment can save a considerable amount. Idle servers are still able consume up to 40% of their full power. In a large number of organisations servers are poorly utilised often operating at only 5 to 15% of the time. Data centre managers have a developing role to play in helping to reduce a company's energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Carry out an energy audit find out where power is being used wasted, and what costs are associated with this.

Take control of IT energy costs by allocation Profit & Loss budget responsibility.

Conduct an audit of server operations. Are your servers being used effectively or are you wasting energy and money.

by: Rakesh Packer

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