Tips For Achieving Energy Efficiency In Datacenter Sector

By Author: Martin Lobo
Total Articles: 355
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There was a time in the past when the number of data centers was significantly less than it is today. Today almost all metropolitan cities are fast becoming a data center hub. The reason behind the mushrooming of data centers is the shift from a paper-based economy to digital based one. As a result of which data centers, which are centralized repository housing critical business and operation support systems for data processing, data storage, and communications networking became common and essential to ensure business continuity. The growing use of the Internet contributed to its mushrooming thus leading to increased energy consumption. When it reached alarming proportion, the federal government passed the public law 109-431 in 2006 entrusting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to examine the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer datacenters.

The study conducted by EPA brought out many startling facts that if allowed to continue would jeopardize the future. The study revealed that in 2006 the data center sector consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) (1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption) ...
... for a total electricity cost of about $4.5 billion. This was double the electricity that was consumed for this purpose in 2000. This accelerated the need for developing solutions for energy efficiency in this sector. The following are some of these solutions.

Datacenter Outsourcing
Gartner defines datacenter outsourcing as “a multiyear or annuity contract or relationship involving the day-to-day management responsibility for operating server/host platforms, including distributed servers and storage. “ It is the process of contracting with a vendor to provide services ranging from hosting, managing and maintaining an entire data centre to more distinct tasks such as upgrading servers or backing up data. The advantages of datacenter outsourcing are cost savings, reduced capital expenditures, improvement in quality, operation expertise, risk management, improved service levels, satisfied ever-stricter compliance requirements, reduced server real estate, and reduced energy use. The different services include shared hosting services, firewall services, managed servers, dedicated hosting services, storage networks, and disaster recovery services

Data Centre Consolidation
Datacenter consolidation refers to the merger of two or more datacenters into a single facility. When compared to managing multiple data centers. Managing and maintaining a larger data center is much easier and cost effective.

Data center Automation
Automating high volume and labor-intensive repetitive tasks help in reducing costs, increasing visibility and control, reducing errors and enhancing service levels. Hence, datacenter activities such as service provisioning, configuration, workloads, compliance and so on are automated.

Datacenter Virtualization
It refers to the creation of a virtual version of a datacenter. Data center Virtualization helps in reducing operational complexities, increasing scalability, and enhancing performance.

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