Would You Prefer A Green Data Center Or Red?

If you are a data center manager and haven’t seen your power bills from a long time, do it now.

Green is a hot topic today and the concept has an impact on how businesses think about data centers. Big companies are announcing the adoption of green technology to save energy and reduce cost. Facebook and Apple are on the top of the list proving that green technology is not a theoretical concept anymore.

Here are best practices to adopt a green data center.

1. Turn Off Dead Servers

Data centers provide a specific amount of storage as required and also an additional extra space for the expansion. This creates a dead server space problem. These servers will consume power and resources, substantially resulting in an increase of cost. It is estimated that around 15% of servers are dead and cost-savings can add up to $1200 in energy costs per year.

Once you turn them off, the next step is to consider consolidation. Substantial savings can be achieved with a few basic changes, consolidating servers is a good option to begin with. This allows IT to reduce the physical servers.

Tip: Not all data centers will have the tools to detect unused equipment. While choosing servers, look for an energy-efficient management solution.

2. Virtualization

Green data centers utilize the concept of virtualization. You don’t really need one server for each piece of software. Virtualization is a key enabler for consolidation and has a large role towards green technology. Virtualization can give data center managers a breathing room in the battle against increasing energy usage since it can improve server utilization and reduce physical servers.

TIP: Virtualization can help control cooling and energy in your business and promote remote access of servers.

With the increasing cost of power and cooling servers, operators are now closely looking how much electricity the devices are consuming and make purchase decisions accordingly. Inefficient power supplies can waste a lot of power before it gets to the server. Further, this energy wasted is turned into heat that requires another watt to further cool it.

TIP: As you upgrade to new equipment, go for energy efficient servers.

3. Look at your equipment

In a managed data center, IT tools account for the majority of energy consumed by businesses. Most hardware companies now provide energy-efficient options. With the appropriate power management tools and measurement systems, managers will have a greater understanding and control over power consumption.

Administrators mostly focus on uptime and performance and are not much comfortable with advances tools available.

TIP: Green technology always had its roots in power management tools. So, always go for the best ones.

4. Switch to high-efficiency power supplies

Choosing an energy supplier is an important decision while controlling the energy consumption of the data center.   Efficient power supplies are available now to eliminate the inefficiencies with multiple AC/DC conversions. By selecting the one that can provide cleaner energy sources, you can ensure that data center runs on greener power that doesn’t cost a penny to earth.

High-efficiency power supplies would directly lower your power bills and reduce cooling system cost and heating issues.

TIP: Opting for an energy efficient power supplier makes sense when you are trying to get eco-friendly data center.

5. Redesign cooling system

Data center cooling is something hot to discuss. Nobody wants to redesign the cooling systems every year, but a ship to stern revamp is must-have for businesses.

TIP: Cooling has been a constant struggle for businesses, but can pay off huge if done right.    

Your strategy for the data center has an impact on your organizations’ footprint in the world. The more data center elements you measure, the more opportunities you make towards a greener environment.