Success for global green IT depends on the continued collaboration among groups within your company, among technology vendors, data center design and build businesses, energy utilities, governments, and other external organizations.
The current global economic recession has squeezed IT budgets, hindered capital expenditure and generally slowed the growth of IT development. However, according to a report just published by independent market analyst Datamonitor, 'Can Green IT Bloom in an Economic Downturn', it may also prove to be a significant upside to the market for green IT.
Introduction
In the data center, the advent of high-density computing equipment has sent power usage soaring. For instance, servers and their supporting infrastructure consumed an estimated 1.5% of US electricity in 2006, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. As a result, power consumption and other "green" issues are fast becoming the information technology (IT) industry's biggest challenge. Inevitably, as these concerns grow, focus will broaden to all types of IT equipment, settling on one of the thirstiest devices; the local area network (LAN) switch, which can consume several thousand watts.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Data centres are the work horses that support internet connectivity, and they are massive power users. Few people understand the real impact that the computing world makes on our collective carbon footprint. To put the issue in perspective it is often quoted in terms of “equivalent houses”. A typical medium size 2000m2, 4000 kilowatt (kW) load, 2005 build Data Centre has an annual energy consumption equivalent to about 3000 2-3 bedroom homes.
WHAT ARE THE SHORT TERM FIXES?
This paper is part 2 of a series for IT and Property professionals who are concerned about energy consumption in Data Centres.
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