مفهوم Green Datacenter

مفهوم Green Datacenter

What is a green data center?

A green data center is one that can operate with maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact. This includes the mechanical, lighting, electrical and IT equipment (servers, storage, network, etc.). Within corporations, the focus on green data centers is driven primarily by a desire to reduce the tremendous electricity costs associated with operating a data center. That is, going green is recognized as a way to reduce operating expense significantly for the IT infrastructure.

The interest in green data centers is also being driven by the federal government. In 2006, Congress passed public law 109-431 asking the EPA to: “analyze the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer data centers by the Federal Government and private enterprise.”

In response, the EPA developed a comprehensive reportanalyzing current trends in the use of energy and the energy costs of data centers and servers in the U.S. and outlined existing and emerging opportunities for improving energy efficiency. It also made recommendations for pursuing these energy-efficiency opportunities broadly across the country through the use of information and incentive-based programs.

According to the EPA report, the two largest consumers of electricity in the data center are:

• Support infrastructure — 50% of total

• General servers — 34% of total

Since then, significant strides have been made to improve the efficiency of servers. High density blade servers and storage are now offering much more compute capacity per Watt of energy. Server virtualization is allowing organizations to reduce the total number of servers they support, and the introduction of EnergyStar servers have all combined to provide many options for both the public and private sectors to reduce that 34% of electricity being spent on the general servers.

Of course, the greatest opportunity for further savings is in the support infrastructure of the data center facility itself. According to the EPA, most data centers consume 100% to 300% of additional power for the support systems than are being used for their core IT operations. Through a combination of best practices and migration to fast-payback facility improvements (like ultrasonic humidification and tuning of airflow), this overhead can be reduced to about 30% of the IT load.