In the past an IT director had a simple problem to address – ‘how to source the capacity and power required to support the needs of existing customers, while provisioning for any potential growth’

This activity became dramatically more complicated a few years ago with new regulatory and corporate governance directives (such as Sarbanes Oxley and MiFID), these required organisations to store more data for longer periods. This dramatically increased the level of capacity the datacentre community was required to provide. The sector responded by providing faster servers and large quantities of low-cost storage.

While these new components helped to solve the immediate problem they also increased the power each facility required. The use of high-density, rack-mounted servers increased heat levels within facilities, requiring more power to be invested in larger more powerful cooling systems. This rise in power consumption has seen many outside of the sector class datacentres as being environmentally unfriendly. It has even been reported that former London mayor, Ken Livingstone was against any new data centre facilities or build-outs in the east of London because of environmental issues and that new facilities could compromise power supplied to the 2012 Olympics. A view not held by the datacentre industry or UK businesses who have been feeling the affects of the capacity crunch for the past eighteen months. According to Dan Golding of analyst The 451 Group, demand increased by 14 percent over the last year while supply was up by just six percent.

Another argument levelled at datacentre vendors is that smaller in-house datacentres are better for the environment. True, they may be smaller and use less power than large third party datacentres, but when you analyse the power cost per rack, private facilities are often drastically less green than their vendor counter-parts. Purpose built green data centres that are built from the ground up to optimise power using the latest equipment will always be greener. Some of the new data centres even recycle generated heat which can then be used in local homes and businesses. Something else to remember is that initial construction and deployment costs will ultimately be a fraction of the total operational expense of the lifetime of a facility.

Why invest in green technology?
Customer and public perception is one very compelling reason. The European Commission’s annual Eurobarometer survey found that 75 per cent of people questioned had a noticeable preference to companies that were seen to act responsibly towards the environment. Many people were even willing to pay a premium for green services.

This sentiment has seen Governments around the world implement carbon cutting policies. The UK for instance aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 4MtCO2 per year by 2020. The UK’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is a mandatory carbon trading scheme that requires businesses who consume at least 6,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) per year to buy carbon credits. These credits cost approximately £12 per ton of CO2. Failure to comply results in penalties and monetary fines. The government plans to further develop the scheme in 2013 when carbon credits will be capped and auctioned, forcing businesses within the UK to reduce carbon emissions.

This legalisation is mirrored across Europe with the EU keen to cut CO2 levels by at least 20 per cent by 2020. In fact the EU wants to go a step further and reduce CO2 levels by 50 per cent by 2050.

Going green - a two step approach
To comply with this legislation, while providing the capacity required by the market, datacentres vendors must address green-IT on two fronts – firstly during the new build process and secondly by improving existing facilities.

New facilities provide vendors with the perfect opportunity to build green-IT technologies into premises. By considering the environment from the start vendors can look to reduce each building’s carbon footprint by embracing green technologies such as heat exporting (which sees generated waste heat from servers exported to help heat nearby homes and businesses). Alternative energy technologies such as photovoltaic cells can be built into a facility’s structure helping to reduce the reliance of external energy resources while also lowering operating costs.

Inside the datacentre there are many environmental savings to be had. The last five years has seen datacentre technologies evolve dramatically. Modern servers can store more data per rack, reducing the hardware required for each terabyte of data. Heat generated by hardware can also be better controlled and used to help lower operating costs. By alternating hot and cold aisles vendors can reduce the power required for internal cooling systems. Technologies such as virtualisation and data de-duplication can help facilitate secure greater utilisation from equipment.

Making an existing datacentre greener, while still meeting market demand is harder. Many older facilities have power and cooling constraints due to older technology deployed. Improving the electrical efficiency of the facility can make a big difference as can choosing the right equipment. An increasing number of servers, storage, power supply and networking products are now designed with the environment in mind. Even individual components can be changed to ensure the highest energy efficiency is secured per rack. By replacing older server equipment with new kit vendors can open up valuable capacity which was previously unusable as well as providing environmental benefits.

Final thoughts
So is the green datacentre an oxymoron? Absolutely not. Datacentre facilities are never going to be 100% green but they need to offer businesses the capacity they require in the most environmentally friendly way possible. In the coming months, businesses are going to be auditing their infrastructure closely in order to ensure that they are as green as possible and don't have to make large investments in carbon credits or receive fines.

In short, green IT is quickly becoming a boardroom issue rather than an IT one. Vendors might also find that being green allows them to pick up new customers who want to reduce their carbon footprint or just care about how their data is stored.

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Telehouse will open its £80 million flagship data centre Telehouse West in March 2010. The state-of-the-art datacentre will provide 19,000 square metres of datacentre capacity. The facility will reduce its carbon footprint by exporting waste heat to help heat nearby homes and businesses in the heart of London’s Docklands. The move will save up to 1,110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum and provide up to nine megawatts of power for the local neighbourhood. The energy savings will equate to boiling 3,000 kettles continuously.

The views expressed are those of the author.
The author: Bob Harris will speak at DatacenterDynamics London 11:10, Hall 2 November 11th where he will describe the planning, engineering and construction of the Telehouse West facility.

Event: DatacenterDynamics London November 10th, 11th 2009
Related News: Telehouse to use waste heat in public sector housing
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