Analyst Gartner says a true
green datacentre means more than energy efficiency being
considered by firms. To be successful, firms must see a green
datacentre as a "living organism".
"If 'greening' the datacentre is the goal, power efficiency is
the starting point but this is not sufficient on its own," said
Gartner analyst Rakesh Kumar.
"Green requires an end-to-end, integrated view of the
datacentre, including the building, energy efficiency, waste
management, asset management, capacity management, technology
architecture, support services, energy sources and operations," he
said.
Legacy datacentres, constructed in the last decade are, in
relative terms, functionally obsolete when addressing green IT, he
said.
New, high-density, power-hungry datacentre equipment warrants
more advanced power and cooling capabilities, said Kumar. If they
are not fully aware of the problem, datacentre managers run the
risk of doubling their energy costs between 2005 and 2011.
"If we assume that datacentre energy costs continue to double
every five years, they will have increased 1,600% between 2005 and
2025," he said.
"Datacentre managers need to think differently about their
datacentres. Tomorrow's datacentre is moving from being static to
becoming a 'living organism', where modelling and measuring tools
will become one of the major elements of its management.
"It will be dynamic and address a variety of technical,
financial and environmental demands, and will be modular to respond
quickly to demands for floor space. In addition, it will need to
have some degree of flexibility, to run workloads where energy is
cheapest and above all be highly-available, with 99.999%
availability," Kumar said.
Gartner says that achieving an optimised, reliable and efficient
datacentre environment requires a holistic and integrated approach,
which can be broken down into six stages:
1) Pick the location according to a strategic facility strategy.
High-bay, warehouse-type buildings provide more efficient rack
layout and airflow
2) Develop the site on a modular basis
3) Include chillers and high-ventilation air conditioning units
(HVACS).Build all new large facilities with chilled fluid plumbing
at the outset
4) Introduce some recycling and alternative energy sources
5) Put in monitoring tools
6) Manage the server efficiencies.Move away from the "always on"
mentality and look at powering equipment down
Kumar said, "In this way, datacentres will become more energy
efficient, be better for the environment and use emerging green IT
products and processes. In essence, this 'living organism'
datacentre will be the green datacentre."
Gartner analysts will examine the concept of the datacentre as a
living organism at the firm's
Data Center Summit in Amsterdam this week.
Green datacentres to proliferate >>
Measuring the datacentre's power >>