Datacenter managers are happy to talk about sharing the planet but their commitment to saving the environment ends when it comes to sharing information, complained a project manager of a global data center building corporation at the DatacenterDynamics conference in London Tuesday.

Shared information about possible energy savings could create far greater efficiency levels and PUE ratings than those being achieved currently, Christopher Strom, director of project development for construction giant Skanska. Sometimes, information rationing is so severe that even people in the same company are oblivious to the low-hanging fruit in cost and energy savings.

Such selfishness neutralizes much of the progress made toward lowering cooling overheads, increasing storage efficiency and driving down PUE across the industry. Without information sharing, everyone acts in isolation and the industry may not create the necessary solutions as quickly as it could, Strom argued.

He said he had invented his own solution to the 'information silo' problem. The solution is a data-sharing system that provides information in 'an open-source style'. Unusually for a system that styles itself on open-source methods, however, he built it using Microsoft SharePoint tools. SharePoint is not an open-source solution.

The first wall this new information tool seeks to break down is the barrier created by differing data structures. "Real-time data and equipment data come in different forms," Strom explained. An open structure would [make it easier to] continually add functionality as each new capability comes online."

Ultimately, the system could provide a foundation for automating data center metrics, which could help evolve PUE into a more accurate tool for tackling carbon emissions and waste, he argued.