Green data center operational strategies are becoming increasingly important, given the growing number of businesses looking to save money on their increasing energy costs and reduce their carbon emissions. While many of us talk about how important it is to be environmentally friendly, we can often get lost in the details at the corporate level and need to remember that practical changes can be made to improve our data centers’ sustainability.
Green data centers are becoming increasingly popular with businesses. With the increase in green data centers, many companies have faced obstacles operating these facilities. This brief will help you learn five critical green data center operational strategies.
Why do you need green data center operational strategies?
Green data center operational strategies are becoming necessary for the growing number of companies that have decided to invest in green technology. Green data center operational strategies encompass a variety of ways to continue efficient operations while minimizing the amount of energy and resources used. The benefits of green data center operational strategies are endless, from reduced energy costs to better employee morale.
Another reason green data center operational strategies are so important is that they help ensure your company’s reputation isn’t damaged. If you need to become environmentally friendly, you will be associated with companies that could be better. This could mean a drop in sales and a loss of customers. By implementing greener data center operational strategies, you can avoid these things from happening.
The cost of running a data center can be reduced by investing in efficient energy management solutions, which provide significant savings over time. For example, it is possible to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 40 percent by implementing technologies that improve efficiency and power consumption.
Maintaining constant uptime and performance for mission-critical applications can be difficult for IT jobs. That’s where efficient design and power management strategies become essential. Deploying devices like VoIP phones or video surveillance equipment can reduce costs and improve communications within your organization. When used correctly, these devices can help reduce energy consumption by lowering the electricity needed.
Implementing green data center operational strategies
First, you should always work with an experienced and knowledgeable data center developer. This individual or company will help you find ways to save money on your energy bills while minimizing your carbon footprint. If you need to know where to begin, look for a company that can provide you with a quote that is customized for your business needs and has been reviewed by a professional engineer who specializes in data centers and can ensure that the design is feasible.
Second, try to minimize the amount of electrical equipment in your data center. Some equipment may not be necessary or may not be in use at certain times of the day or night, so it makes sense to remove it from your facility altogether. Consider monitoring the usage of this equipment with sensors and automated controls. For example, if your servers aren’t being used, why keep them running? If a sensor detects that one of your other electrical devices isn’t being used, it could automatically shut off the power to that device until it’s needed again.
Maximizing energy efficiency
Energy efficiency is a vital component of any data center’s operations. A data center needs to be built with an eye on energy efficiency. All the latest data center designs include a range of different heat and power management systems that can help maximize the energy efficiency of a data center facility.
Here are some key strategies that you can use to maximize the energy efficiency of a data center facility.
- Efficient cooling design.
- Redundancy in cooling systems.
- Intelligent cooling system control and monitoring.
Data center cooling accounts for a significant portion of operational costs, so ensuring the facility is designed with optimal airflow, and adequate air filters is critical. Redundant cooling systems are also essential to ensure optimal performance in the event of a malfunction or failure.
Air quality monitoring is also necessary. It is to ensure that cool air is delivered only to areas where it is needed. In many cases, this translates into a need for intelligent air conditioning controls that can monitor temperatures and automatically adjust to maintain optimal conditions for equipment and personnel.
Minimizing your environmental impact
When it comes to being a good neighbor and protecting the environment, one of the best ways to do both is to minimize your environmental impact. For example, if you’re running a data center or operation that uses much energy (and therefore produces a lot of waste heat) and you need to set up temporary cooling fans.
Consider using the wind itself to help keep those things cool. Instead of using an expensive electricity-powered fan to increase your carbon footprint, attach the fan to a long pole so it can be placed in an area where the wind naturally blows through. This is a great way to turn your data center into an environmental champion even as you fulfill your immediate business needs.
Good practices include:
- Use power management techniques to reduce your energy consumption. Using this technique will help you save on your power bill, and it also helps in reducing your carbon footprint, as power management techniques decrease the overall need for power. Power management techniques include:
- Power capping – This strategy involves capping the maximum power usage of a specific device that does not support dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS). It also consists in restricting access or limiting the number of cores used by an application. Power capping is an excellent strategy to limit your organization’s carbon footprint while allowing your employees to work with full capabilities at all times.
- Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) – This strategy involves changing a system’s voltage and frequency depending on its current workload.
With the rising energy costs and the growing concern about environmental issues, data center operators are looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact without sacrificing the quality of services they provide.
Read also: Powering Digital Transformation Should Consider the Environment
Data Center Building Management System (DC BMS)
Data center building management systems (DC BMS) help manage the data center space. DCBMS collects and organizes data from various sources. They can gather data from the existing physical infrastructure, such as HVAC, UPS, cooling, and power systems. They can also collect data from operational technology (OT) devices like servers, storage, network, and virtualization infrastructure.
The DCBMS software can then organize that information for data center operators and engineers. It provides a means of managing everything from power usage to real estate management and capacity planning to security and compliance controls.
When considering implementing a DC BMS, it is essential to consider how much time will be spent maintaining the system. Updates need to be performed routinely to ensure that all of the equipment being managed by the system is accurately represented in the database.
For example, if an organization has ten racks of servers but only seven are included in their database, they are at risk of needing more capacity to support critical applications while running regular maintenance on those servers that should be shut down. This could result in downtime or even damage to hardware.
Maintenance includes adding new systems to the database as they are added or replaced so that the most accurate environment representation is maintained to get a detailed view of power consumption across all equipment.
A green data center should be less about power and more about intelligence.
Data centers are growing at an exponential rate, which means that the world’s data-crunching power is also increasing exponentially. While this is excellent for many businesses, it isn’t without negative implications. The constant increase in the number of computers means we must constantly find ways to keep those machines cool and to run properly, which can’t be done without much power. In addition, the amount of energy required to cool all the new devices is starting to add up quickly.
Data centers are a significant part of energy consumption in any country, and green data center operational strategies are required to reduce the carbon footprint of these centers. The green data center’s operational strategies include implementing solar energy, wind turbine energy, hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy, and other forms of alternative energy.
Green technology is not just about power management and reducing carbon footprint. It is also about utilizing intelligent technologies to manage the data center efficiently and effectively. Better control of the data center results in lower energy consumption, increased staff productivity, reduced failure rates, and lower costs associated with downtime and maintenance.
Conclusion
Data center operational sustainability strategies are essential for data center owners and operators. In addition to the facility level, operational sustainability strategies include employee engagement and awareness initiatives and strategic partnerships.
A truly green data center positively impacts the environment, the bottom line, and the company’s image. There are various ways to implement green initiatives, which can be grouped into three categories: 1) people, 2) technology and 3) operations.
One strategy for ensuring that you’re getting the most out of your data center has an automated system to manage it. This could take the form of software or hardware, but either way, it should be able to identify potential problems and make changes accordingly.