Save Money On Data Center Cooling

June 6, 2008 — (GREEN DATA CENTER INFO) — Processor (processor.com) published some tips to conserve energy and cut costs in the data center in their June 6 issue this week.

Tips include adding complementary systems, planning for cooling expenses, adopting a holistic view and cooling cost quick fixes.

Implementing these plans can help control costs and reduce cooling expenses, resulting in long-term benefits of less energy waste and a cleaner environment.

To read the full article, click here.

Tags: data center, Processor

ZDNet Speaks with Dell’s Green Guru

June 6, 2008 — (GREEN DATA CENTER INFO) — A few week’s ago, ZDNet’s Heather Clancy spoke with Dell’s (dell.com) ”green guru”, Albert Esser, vice president of power and infrastructure.

Apparently, Dell is the first high-tech vendor to reach the Silver level under the 80 Plus power supply designation, which means Dell has met power supply qualifications set by the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a year ahead of schedule.

“The 80 PLUS performance specification requires multi-output power supplies in computers and servers to be 80% or greater energy efficient at 20%, 50% and 100% of rated load with a true power factor of 0.9 or greater.”

Click here to read the full story.

Tags: Climate Savers Computing Initiative, Dell, server, ZDNet

Green Digital Data Archive to be built in Iceland

June 3, 2008 — (GREEN DATA CENTER INFO) —  The Iceland Review Online published a story last month about Data Íslandia (dataislandia.com) announcing plans to build a “green digital data archive” in southwest Iceland.

The construction of the archive is planned to start later this year. Data Íslandia’s operations will be powered by renewable energy, while natural wind cooling will reduce energy useage.

The project is a cooperation between Data Íslandia, Sudurnes Energy Company, VSÓ Consultation, Kanon Architects, ParX Trade Consultancy for IBM and the town council of Sandgerdi.

Tags: Data Íslandia, Iceland, renewable energy

It’s Not Easy Selling Green

By Liam Eagle

Hosts are making big “green” hosting promises, but crafting a marketing message for green hosting can be tricky as consumers become more wary of “greenwashing” dressing ordinary products and services up in eco-friendly rhetoric

A student of the history of the green movement might consider April 22, 1990, Earth Day, the moment the environment was acknowledged as an issue of universal public interest, as more than 200 million people marked the occasion by participating in events worldwide.

It is also approximately the moment, unsurprisingly, that businesses began incorporating “green” messages into their marketing efforts in earnest, catering their messages to a well-known concern of the average person. Though in many cases, the actual shift to green business practices has been a slower process.

The green movement in the hosting business has developed quickly, and the “green hosting” message has cropped up at a similar pace in the several years since the extent of data center power consumption has become a more public concern. But unlike in many other markets, the shift to greener business practices in hosting has a direct economic motivation.

“The whole green movement,” says Curtis R. Curtis, senior VP of sales and marketing at Superb Internet, “has a lot more hype than reality to it. That said, I feel like the data center business is going to be the exception, and it has to be the exception. The economic requirements behind the greening of data centers are going to be what drives it. For data centers, greening has immediate impact. Automatically you’re going to save money.”

Hosts almost don’t have to make the decision to go green – it’s a natural consequence of increasingly costly and scarce energy resources. And it’s a cost-cutting move long-term. But they do have to make the decision on how they communicate those efforts to their customers.

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Tags: data center, Earth Day, marketing, virtualization

Web Hosting’s Green Movement

By Dennis McCafferty

There’s a shift going on in the hosting world, toward eco-friendly business - as a community of industry associations, government organizations and other would-be policy makers work to define “green” hosting

It may not be easy being green – but it could be worth the effort.

That’s the picture painted by recent activity in the hosting industry: Environmental policy advocates and government leaders are working with industry executives to explore virtualization and other practices as ways of reducing dependence on the energy-sapping equipment now fueling data centers.

In New York, one hosting company is using hybrid vehicles to transport servers, among other efforts.

And in San Antonio, Rackspace, another host, isn’t only turning to virtualization as a way to reduce consumption – it’s launching a comprehensive, company-to-customer series of green initiatives, including supporting wind turbine farms in the US.

“Why are we doing this?” says John Engates, CTO of Rackspace. “Because the environment right now is in a very dangerous state. Internet and data-center infrastructure are growing at a very fast pace, and we’re going to ruin the planet if we don’t do anything about it. As a large data-center operator, our customers expect us to take the initiative to do the right thing. But there are self-serving reasons as well. We save on energy costs and equipment costs to our customers by doing this, and that puts us in a better financial situation.”

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Tags: AMD, blade server, cooling, data center, Dell, EPA, government, HP, IBM, Intel, LimeLeap, Logicworks, Rackable Systems, Rackspace, renewable energy, solar, SprayCool, Sun Microsystems, TerraPass, The Green Grid, virtualization, VMware

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