Technology

Going green to save green

By Steve Trusty

As with most other areas in today’s world, going green in the data center is a hot topic. There are a number of reasons to go green, energy efficiency being just one of them.

In fact, a study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy determined that data centers can be as much as 40 times more energy-intensive than conventional office buildings.

“There are three Es to consider — environmental, energy and efficiencies,” says Geoff Hanson, practice director of servers and storage for Pomeroy IT Solutions. “With the right green initiatives, you can help the environment, save energy (and dollars) and create efficiencies that will also save money and help the bottom line. The green movement is starting to affect the IT department in a big way.”

Smart Business spoke with Hanson to glean further insights into greening up the data center.

What exactly is a green data center?

A green data center is one designed with the mechanical, lighting, electrical and computer systems for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact. The construction and operation of a green data center includes advanced technologies and strategies.

Does it cost or save to be green?

You can definitely save by becoming green. Yes, there are investments needed, but when properly planned and implemented, the savings can offset those costs. The time it takes to realize maximum offsetting savings depends on a number of factors.

What are the first steps to take to be green?

The first step a company can take does-n’t cost a dime and is not difficult. You can easily start saving money by simply turning off your desktops and monitors at the end of the day. Companies can also look at their server environments.

Through server consolidation and virtualization and implementing multicore blade server technology, you will improve the utilization of your server hardware investments while reducing your data center footprint, power, heating and cable management costs. Also, through emerging technologies and power management by chip manufacturers, servers can be powered down when not utilized, thus realizing additional power savings.

Another step would include consolidating and virtualizing storage into shared storage pools and by implementing such tools as de-duplication of data to save on disk space. This helps to reduce the overall storage requirements and backup costs and simplify data recovery.

A fourth step would include virtualizing the desktop infrastructure and implementing Energy Star-compliant PCs, monitors and/or thin clients. Companies will realize energy-efficient gains in power as well as improvements through centralized systems management. Desktops also have the ability to be powered down either manually or through automated tools to help reduce electrical use and heat dissipation.

Other steps to take to move toward going green would include the procurement area, changing the way equipment is purchased. Procurement procedures could be put in place to seek out Energy Star-compliant equipment.

Are there other things that you can plan for as you make changes or upgrades?

Many companies are building new data centers and/or disaster recovery facilities. As these facilities are being architected, designed and constructed, they should be looking at efficient structures and materials during the build out process. There are new and improved air handlers, water-cooling systems, environmentally controlled computer racks and energy-efficient hardware available for tomorrow’s data centers today. In many data centers, cool air is pushed by air handlers through raised computer room floors and drawn up through perforated tiles into cabinets and the hot air pulled through ceiling return air ducts. Cables under the raised floors that are spread throughout restrict the flow. Companies are now addressing cable management under their raised floors to improve airflow. Better cable management, cable trays and/or air conduits are being utilized for more efficient cooling.

A strong recommendation to organizations moving forward is to have assessments performed of their IT facilities’ environmental and energy footprints. It is also extremely important to have assessments performed on their servers, storage, desktops, printing and networking infrastructures. These assessments would allow them to better understand their hardware utilization and the cost savings that can be realized through consolidating and virtualizing their environments with new energy-compliant and energy-efficient technologies. Regular audits of the infrastructures should be performed as a follow up to ensure everything is being fully utilized.

GEOFF HANSON is the practice director of servers and storage for Pomeroy IT Solutions in Cincinnati. Reach him at (602) 690-6376 or ghanson@pomeroy.com.