The excessive energy consumption of data centers poses a severe threat to the global environment. The data center begins to transform into a green data center, not just to boost green energy consumption.
Green data center has been the trend in the past few years. This trend has been developing along with the fast development of the world economy and society. Green data center is to reduce energy consumption and promote other aspects such as cost, people’s work efficiency, QOL, and so on.
The data center begins to transform into a Green Data Center
If a company’s business model relies on a large number of servers, then it also needs a high-quality data center for its servers’ normal operation. However, data centers consume many resources, such as energy, space, and money.
In terms of resource consumption, these are mainly related to the power consumption of servers and air conditioning systems. The power consumption of servers will increase with the scale of servers increasing in data centers.
For example, according to an IDC report in June 2011, the total capacity of server shipments will reach 738 million units by 2015. This figure is almost four times that in 2008 and means that we may face a severe problem with effectively controlling data centers’ energy consumption in the future.
The data center will soon be moving into a new era.
A recent survey of data center managers conducted by the Uptime Institute and the Green Grid revealed that almost 90 percent of respondents have either made or are planning to make changes to their data centers to meet their green IT goals.
Data centers will soon be moving into a new era, one in which they will be more energy and cost-efficient. This is happening because they need to be more energy efficient if they want to survive the onslaught of cyber warfare.
The survey revealed that 77 percent of respondents believe there will be a significant increase in cyber attacks against their company over the next few years. They cite hackers after intellectual property as the biggest threat to a data center’s security. But even if companies don’t want to worry about hackers, they’ll need to upgrade their data center infrastructure to keep up with their competitors.
Forty-nine percent of respondents believed that their competitors were either ahead or at least keeping pace regarding green IT implementation. This means that unless your company switches to a greener data center model, it won’t stand a chance against its rivals—especially considering how competitive business has become.
Newer data centers are using green strategies like fuel cells, self-cooling systems, and more efficient air conditioning.
These strategies lower power usage and the time that equipment is not in use. They also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide waste from the data center. In addition to these strategies, new data centers are designed with natural ventilation and sun shades to keep their temperature.
In addition, green data center strategies are often considered when companies are attempting to improve their public image or when they are trying to attract environmentally conscious employees.
The concept of a data center being green
In data centers, “green” refers to facilities and infrastructure supporting environmental sustainability. Green data centers are part of a more significant industry-wide movement toward more sustainable IT practices.
A green data center, according to the Uptime Institute, utilizes the following principles:
- Reduce energy and material use by maximizing equipment utilization
- Use renewable energy
- Reduce water use
- Minimize waste
- Ensure proper employee safety and comfort
- Promote the use of recycled and recyclable materials
Green data centers are also influenced by how they are managed. The staff has been trained on how to use the facilities efficiently and how to handle themselves with respect and care for their surroundings.
This means that nothing gets thrown away needlessly—not even waste materials from manufacturing—and employees are urged to recycle paper and find alternative ways of using it instead of just throwing it away. With this mindset, there’s no reason why every company couldn’t strive for a greener world and a more eco-friendly future.
Energy efficiency is the biggest challenge to data center operators
Data centers have a large electricity footprint and consume significant energy, with many facilities in operation 24/7. The best way to reduce the environmental impact is to reduce power usage; however, with the increasing demand for computing resources, it’s challenging to achieve this goal. It’s crucial for data center operators to consider ways to optimize power usage and switch to more eco-friendly energy sources.
Data center operators are determined to change this course and reduce their carbon footprint. According to a recent survey by Emerson Network Power, 80% of respondents agreed that reducing energy use is their biggest challenge when operating their data center.
However, only three percent had a target for reducing their environmental impacts like carbon emissions, water usage, and waste generation. The most considerable concern was cooling infrastructure, server power consumption, and distribution.
Green data center technologies
Most data centers today are not designed to be green, which is why many companies choose to build new data centers in areas where they can take advantage of local renewable energy sources such as geothermal or solar power. Industry leaders are also working on R&D to develop sustainable solutions for the future.
Green data center technologies are ways to reduce the cost of maintaining a data center and the overall carbon emissions resulting from it. The most familiar green data center technologies are racks that recycle heat, cooling towers that use evaporative cooling, and waterless urinals.
While many data center begins to transform into a green data center, the first step is installing energy-efficient equipment (hardware and software).
This includes:
- Modernizing older hardware so that it uses less energy and breaking down some barriers so that you can use different pieces of equipment at once.
- Switching from older servers to newer models with less power will save your business money.
- Virtualization allows organizations to save space by consolidating servers in one location instead of many locations worldwide. Instead of needing each office and satellite location to have its servers, they can access them remotely with virtualization software, saving time, time, and money in the long run.
Green data center technologies provide many benefits to the immediate surroundings and the environment, including minimizing energy consumption, reducing the amount of waste generated, and improving worker productivity. Because of this, many companies are starting to transform their data centers into green ones while maximizing their information technology investments.
Green data center is energy-efficient and environmentally responsible
Data centers can still be environmentally friendly even when owned by the company they serve. Companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google have worked to make their extensive data center facilities as green as possible. For instance, Google uses rainwater to cool its servers, and Facebook utilizes a geothermal heat pump to keep its data center cool without using electricity.
Even with their energy-hungry components, data centers can be built to be highly eco-friendly—in fact, some of them are 100 percent sustainable. These facilities allow us to maximize the use of our resources, including more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of creating power and water for these facilities (using solar, wind, hydropower, etc.).
Green data centers are important because they create a way to conserve energy while developing a sense of environmental responsibility. While a green data center can reduce the amount of energy used in a typical data center, it also helps accomplish this goal in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.
They also focus on responsible recycling practices to minimize discarded waste products, which can harm the environment if not disposed of properly. These facilities provide a sustainable way of storing the critical information we use daily without sacrificing the planet.
Green data center has received significant attention from industry experts. However, it’s still in its early stage, with many challenges regarding technology development, cost reduction, and adoption. Beyond that, the environmental impact of data centers is becoming more apparent to people.
Better Environment in the Future
The green data center uses sustainable practices and equipment to reduce its environmental impact. Green data centers use more efficient power supplies and cooling systems, better materials for building and maintaining facilities, and more innovative human resource practices.
Green data centers are also more energy-efficient. They use 40% less fuel than traditional data centers by capturing waste heat and reusing it as server heat or delivering it to the environment. These high-performance servers consume half the power needed to handle light workloads, which reduces overall power consumption when they are not running at total capacity.
Green data centers can eliminate their carbon footprint by using cleaner energy sources to produce their own electricity, such as solar panels or biofuel generators. As a result, green data centers deliver substantial savings in operating costs for companies that use them.
We all agreed to reduce the carbon emission footprint in the data center industry to 0% by 2050. The agreement on awareness of changes in advertising has encouraged data centers to transform into green data centers.
By decreasing carbon emissions in the data center and the more efficient use of energy in the data center, we can prevent future climate damage.