IT Business
Simple green tweaks for datacentres
But is the message being lost during recession?
By Mikael Ricknäs, IDG news service | Published 11:34, 27 March 09
Businesses can take a number of simple measures to make datacentres more environmentally friendly, an expert has said.
But he warned the message is becoming lost by companies distracted by the economic downturn.
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If your datacentre is really cold you should take a look at hardware specifications to see if the temperature can be turned up, which will result in savings on the power bill, according to the Storage Networking Industry Association’s European chairman, Juergen Arnold.
There is a lot of talk about green datacentres, but when it comes to actual energy-saving projects and investments there is not much going on, according to Arnold, who this week spoke at a SNIA Europe Academy event in Stockholm.
Arnold attributes the gap between talk and action to the economic downturn, and companies spending money elsewhere. But it is important that the issue is not lost, he said.
Even if budgets are tight there is a lot that can be done to make datacentres greener and more energy efficient without spending a lot of money. A good place to start is cooling, because it represents 60 percent to 70 percent of datacentre power spending, according to Arnold.
There is much room for improvements, said Arnold. Currently, many datacentres are too cold. "That's just because datacentre managers want to be on safe side, and they don't know what kind of equipment they have," he said.
