Table of Contents. 2 Why IT Organizations Everywhere Need to go Green. 3 Greening the Data Center

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER: Energy Efficiency Go Green: Energy Efficiency for the IT Organization Table of Contents 2 Why IT Organizations Everywhere Need to go Green 3 Greening the Data Center 5 Savvis Commitment to Sustainability 6 Take the Next Step 4 Colocation: One of the First Steps to a More Energy-efficient Data Center

2 Why IT Organizations Everywhere Need to go Green With governments worldwide negotiating climate change agreements and setting carbon taxes and emissions caps, organizations must anticipate more mandates for energy savings. The regulatory situation differs from one country to the next, with many countries taking the lead in imposing stringent requirements. But even where there are currently no legislated requirements for energy savings, governments and concerned citizens are taking steps toward putting these measures in place by seeking disclosure of the amount of energy and the associated CO2 emissions that organizations are using. IT is on the front lines of many green initiatives. IT is on the front lines of many green initiatives, for several reasons. IT systems will be part of any mechanism for metering, monitoring, analyzing and reporting energy and process flows. Computer software can help optimize a range of activities from data center management, factory operations and product design. IT can also support the greening of other parts of the business, delivering productivity improvements and energy savings by enabling changes such as less physical shipment of products, work-from-home initiatives and fine-tuning of energy needs for HVAC and other systems. In addition, with approximately 10 percent of the CO2 emissions of developed countries coming from IT sources, IT itself is a focus for energy-savings initiatives. Data centers consume a significant amount of electricity in running servers, heating and cooling. The possibility of saving on IT s share of the utility bill and enhancing the organization s green profile can and should attract boardroom attention, even in the absence of any immediate legislated requirements. 2

3 Greening the Data Center Data centers use much of their energy inefficiently. For example, many server computers run at less than 30 percent capacity. As the amount of power used does not grow in direct relationship to utilization, many companies have already implemented virtualization software, enabling them to take fuller advantage of the capacity of their server hardware and reducing the number of physical machines they need to power. By making better use of that equipment, they achieve greater power usage effectiveness (PUE), which has become a metric for the effect of data center design and operation on data center efficiency. Inefficiencies in heating and cooling are a more complex problem. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has issued new thermal guidelines for data processing environments, providing data center managers information about optimal and acceptable temperatures within the data center. The new recommendations suggest temperatures to rise more than before, saving money on air conditioning. You can also change the layout of your server rows to create hot aisles and cool aisles, which also reduce the need for cooling. While most organizations have the ability to marginally improve the energy efficiency of their data centers, truly optimizing PUE requires a level of expertise and investment that few can provide. Typically, only large, global colocation providers have the deep pockets, economies of scale and experienced staff required to maximize PUE. (ASHRAE) has issued new thermal guidelines for data processing environments, providing data center managers information about optimal and acceptable temperatures within the data center. 3

4 Colocation: One of the First Steps to a More Energy-efficient Data Center Colocation providers are in the business of running data centers efficiently. Because that s their core mission and not a sideline, those companies focus their resources on creating, maintaining and continually optimizing their PUE. As a result, they can run your hardware using less energy than you can in your own data center, improving your corporate energy efficiency and potentially saving money. Even a data center that s on the grid can operate at a significantly lower energy utilization per square foot than your own data center and pass those savings on to you. If you re considering colocation or evaluating a colocation provider, these are the features you should take into account: Quality of any equipment that the colocation provider uses. If a provider also offers access to devices that it owns and operates, you should expect to see that they re using the best commercial-grade equipment. This ensures a longer lifespan and less physical IT waste over time. State-of-the-art building management systems. Now that guidelines for heat levels have changed, colocation providers should be pushing the envelope and running data centers at approximately 75 degrees Fahrenheit. This requires them to take advantage of more sophisticated sensing and localized air conditioning controls to make sure that temperatures don t go outside the narrower margins of safety. Compliance with ASHRAE standards and recommendations. These include laying servers out in hot-aisle and cold-aisle configurations. Motion-sensor- activated lights. To save power, ambient lighting is turned on only when needed. Efficiency of heating and cooling systems, including leverage of free cooling and heating. Colocation facilities should be recovering and reusing waste heat to warm adjacent areas, cutting energy use. They should also use outside air as a source for chilled air, reducing the need to chill it before pumping it into the data center. A few data centers are powered by wind or other renewable resources, but even a data center that s on the grid can operate at a significantly lower energy utilization per square foot than your own data center and pass those savings on to you. Pricing models are changing, and today s colocation clients are more likely to pay for colocation by the kilowatt, making energy savings even more important. 4

5 Savvis Commitment to Sustainability Savvis, a CenturyLink company, operates 50 data centers in major commercial and government market locations around the world. The company offers colocation, managed hosting and a variety of infrastructure and cloud computing services. When you colocate your data center in one or more of our facilities, you begin saving immediately. You no longer need to power those systems, ensure connectivity, or maintain the infrastructure of HVAC and backup power, freeing your employees to focus on the core needs of the business. They no longer have to try to become experts in PUE and data center energy efficiency because we supply those services and expertise in order to deliver consistently excellent service with reduced energy consumption. Data centers cannot achieve a zero carbon footprint because they use a huge amount of power and create heat that must be removed from the facility. However, we are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact by pursuing improved data center design and operational excellence, as well as promoting the use of highly-efficient virtualized and cloud IT environments through the concept of green IT. Although the IT industry faces many environmental challenges, Savvis is committed to working toward solving them and sharing our progress. We believe that, through open disclosure of our green activities and policy, we can help create a more environmentally sustainable future for everyone around the world. When you colocate your data center in one or more of Savvis facilities, you begin saving immediately. 5

6 Take the Next Step Savvis experts can work with you to design a roadmap to guide your organization through the steps involved in moving from an in-house data center to colocation. And when you re ready to do more, we can map out an even greener and more cost-effective course. You can reduce the number of devices you use for greater efficiencies in power and cooling through: Colocation on a shared hosted area network (HAN), plus shared storage and backup Fully-managed hosting Utility computing Virtualized managed hosting Energy efficiency is a journey that all IT organizations need to undertake, but it s not a road you need to travel alone. Savvis and other leading organizations are working to establish industry standards that deliver resource-efficient computing, improved productivity and minimal environmental impact. For more information on what others in IT data centers are doing to go green, join The Green Grid, one of the IT industry s leading voices for advancing resource efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems at Savvis remains one of the highest scoring data centers that we have undertaken an ERA on. The company is already taking their environmental efficiency seriously and they are clearly leading the way in the battle to be as environmentally efficient as is possible in a data center. Alex Rabbetts Managing Director Migration Solutions 6

7 To find out more about Savvis visit or call SAVVIS.1. Global Headquarters 1 Savvis Parkway St. Louis, MO Tel SAVVIS.1 ( ) Canada 6800 Millcreek Drive Mississauga, ON L5N 4J9 Tel EMEA Eskdale Road Winnersh Triangle Wokingham Berkshire RG41 5TS United Kingdom Tel +44 (0) Asia Pacific 50 Raffles Place Singapore Land Tower #13-01 Singapore Tel Japan 7th Floor Kyodo Building (Jinbocho 3cho-me) 3-29 Kanda Jinbocho Chiyoda-ku Tokyo Japan Tel CenturyLink, Inc. All rights reserved. The Savvis mark, logo and certain Savvis product names are the property of CenturyLink, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.