Data centers going green....but how???

Growth and penetration of IT services into each and every business has no doubt made our lives easier but has had its own share of pitfalls as well. Datacenters are no doubt indispensable for the whole IT operations. But the inefficient use of resources and adverse carbon footprint implies that a lot of questions are being raised and lots of fingers are being pointed.

Just ponder over two sets of facts; data centers in US alone consume more than 100 billion kW of power in a year that generates a combined bill of $7.2 billion. Also data centers world over produce 17.2 billion tons of CO2 in a year to which if unutilized server capacity is added, the number rises to 100 million tons of CO2.

The alarm bells were rung sometime back and fortunately well in time. There is a definite realization now that the data centers need be converted into green data centers. It’s an altogether different matter that to a CIO/CTO the color green may signify the color of money first before it turns ecological. But good thing is that every one from CIO to vendor has understood that everything is not ok with existing data centers.

If the conversion to green data center is not economically viable then the effort involved may not make good business sense. And it would be unfair to expect IT decision makers to make judgment without giving due importance to financial aspects. The good news is that green data centers initially may appear to be a financial burden but in the long run they definitely make economic sense as well.

And with the corporate world giving due importance to its social responsibilities, there is a mandate to check their own carbon footprint. On the other hand it’s also true that one of the reasons for turning green is to have a green image in the eyes of the clients and the general public. But at the end of the day such a move does imply that there would be less impact on already fragile earth.

IBM’s Project Big Green launched in May 2007 and Sun Microsystems’ Eco Innovation Initiative launched in August 2007 is some of the very prominent projects launched in this direction. Last Friday (18th July) IBM announced the launch of the second phase of PBG (PBG 2.0) in India, and also introduced new modular data centers expected to reduce energy consumption by as much as 50 per cent.

IT mangers can also contribute in this direction by adopting green approach towards IT operations. By using ultra efficient servers and technologies like consolidation, virtualization, ILM, MAID, energy efficient datacenter layout, liquid cooling systems and green energy sources, IT mangers can definitely do their part towards greening IT.

The toss may appear to be between financial viability and environmental sustainability but in long term they don’t remain antithetical, rather it makes absolute sense to green the data centers.

Written by: Rohit Mishra