Yahoo has chosen data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software by SynapSense for environmental monitoring and cooling control at its Quincy, Washington, data center.

SynapSense expects the customer to save 4.6m kWh of energy annually after deploying the solution. The software is designed to optimize utilization of a data center's existing cooling capacity. Most data centers have more cooling capacity deployed than they need, creating what is often referred to as “stranded” capacity.

Chris Page, global director of energy and sustainability, said she looked forward to seeing the data center's cooling efficiency optimized and the company's overall carbon footprint reduced as a result. “Our partnership with SynapSense will further our efforts to ensure our data centers are as energy efficient as possible,” she said.

This is a second deal Yahoo has done with the vendor. Its SynapSense deployment in Santa Clara, California, has earned it an “Energy Innovators” award from Silicon Valley Power – the utility that serves the city.

Bart Tichelman, SynapSense president and CEO, said savings from lower energy use by a data center's cooling system enabled the DCIM solution to eventually pay for itself. “Working together, we achieve these objectives while increasing data center reliability, and pay for the system with the energy savings.”

The project will consist of three phases. The first phase would be installation of the wireless environmental monitoring system in the data center.

This will be followed by a professional services engagement with SynapSense, where it will help the client optimize and balance airflow in the facility. The final state is implementation of the vendor's control system, which matches cooling capacity to varying equipment and conditions in the data center automatically.