Greening The Data Center

Data centers: data warehouse appliances and servers are the 'boilers' of the information revolution. They enable almost every business process from administration to customer service, decisioning, design/engineering, distribution, manufacturing, marketing/sales, and support. They also require a lot of electricity for operations and cooling to keep these units functional and to limit failures.

Carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter are the key harmful compounds and materials released when burning fossil fuels such as for electric power generation. Gartner reports that data centers account for almost a quarter of global CO2 emissions from information and communications technology, placing it on a par with the aviation industry.

Teradata, which makes data warehousing appliances and solutions, has devised, deployed, and is putting together technologies that reduce energy demand and emissions and which cut the size of building footprint. Among them:

* New cabinet designs that permit more efficient cooling

* Intel multi-core processors that permit more computing power with the same amount of energy

* On tap for late 2010/late 2011are new solid-state drives that are much more efficient than traditional electromechanical magnetic tape-drive units

Emerson Network Power has put together ten ways to get more out of data centers with fewer resources. Here are just a few examples:

* A relatively small investment in precision air conditioning and backup power 

* Increasing data densities thanks to new cooling architectures can enable densities notably higher than average data center densities at a fraction of the cost of building a new facility

* Deploying economizers can be used to allow outside cool air to complement data center cooling systems and provide 'free cooling' during colder months

Take a look at these solutions and advice. What do you have to lose: other than high electric bills, wasted resources, and bad air?

--BR