 "Green Data Centres To Pave Way For Energy-efficient Data Storage")
The economic downturn has emerged as an unlikely driver for the adoption of green data centres.
In an attempt to cut costs, data centre owners are investigating technologies and solutions that would enhance the energy efficiency of their data centres. Information technology (IT) companies running data centres are also keen on implementing green technologies that might not have been a high priority if not for the economic slump.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan ( technicalinsights.frost.com ), Green Data Centres–Emerging Trends and Developments, finds that cost savings, along with the economic downturn, have emerged as the main catalysts in green IT initiatives.
“It is estimated that IT infrastructure alone contributes about 5-10 percent of the total energy utilised for running a company,” notes Technical Insights Research Analyst Achyuthanandan S. “Consequently, companies are scouting for technologies and solutions that would aid in significantly reducing the energy consumed by IT infrastructure.”
High energy costs are motivating Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to find technologies that will help reduce power bills. Green technologies such as virtualisation, cloud computing, and power management techniques are capable of significantly lowering the energy consumption of a data centre.
In the past few years, there have been several instances where companies have cut energy costs and operational expenditure by adopting green technologies in the data centre. Although a majority of companies claim that they are going green due to environmental concerns, cost saving is the primary objective of adopting green IT.
Green technologies offer three main advantages. Reduced energy consumption in data centres leads to both cost and environmental benefits. In addition, the dissipation of less heat compared to typical data centre hardware results in minimal cooling requirements. Virtualisation also aids in significantly reducing the number of servers required for IT operations, thereby saving considerable space.
Designing a green data centre is an arduous and expensive task. Data centres need to deliver the highest quality at affordable costs, impelling managers to evaluate the organisation’s requirements in detail. Deploying a green data centre involves high capital expenditure (CAPEX).
“Although there are considerable savings in the future, enterprises are expected to be cautious before procuring green technologies as costs associated with implementing a green IT infrastructure are high,” explains Technical Insights Research Analyst Gaurav Sundararaman. “The cost associated with building a state-of-the-art data centre could exceed $200 million.”
Companies require infrastructure to support efficient cooling techniques and often need to buy new servers to handle virtualisation and uninterrupted power supply, all of which require sizeable investments. Currently, not many companies are capable of investing so much money on these aspects due to cost constraints. Companies have reported the operating expenditure to be close to 100 percent of the CAPEX. Due to the high CAPEX, small and medium enterprises shy away from greener data centres, as they do not have sufficient resources to raise the capital needed to enhance their infrastructure.
The IT industry should focus on energy management software and develop innovative platforms to increase the power efficiency of data centres. Industry leaders and standard bodies should promote the development of cost-effective cooling techniques for data centres. Researchers and industry participants need to look at alternatives to reduce heat emissions in the data centre.
“Industry leaders should channel R&D efforts towards the development of cost-effective green technologies that are affordable for data centre owners,” concludes Sundararaman. “Consortiums can take assistance from university researchers to develop low cost green techniques that improve the energy efficiency of data centres.”