Promoting the eight green environmental protection calculations

Companies in all industries and all regions must make green data centers a priority. You can consider the following 8 steps to make your data center more sustainable-from a business perspective and an environmental perspective, this is an important task.

In order to build a more environmentally friendly data center, you need to study the power and resource usage of the facility and understand what potential changes can have an impact. You can take some steps to build a more sustainable data center, such as replacing inefficient assets with newer ones, or working with environmentally friendly suppliers.

According to research, in 2018, the power consumption of data centers was about 205 TWh, which accounted for about 1% of the total global power consumption, enough to power some small cities in the United States. The continuous digital development of the world continues to drive demand for energy, which means that as climate change becomes an increasingly urgent global issue, data centers must play an active role in reducing carbon footprint.

Companies in all industries and all regions must make green data centers a priority. You can consider the following 8 steps to make your data center more sustainable-from a business perspective and an environmental perspective, this is an important task.

 

Track basic usage

First, you must know how much power and resources your data center is currently using. First track the overall electricity consumption. Then, you can gain insights into these numbers to predict future usage. For example, break down electricity usage into HVAC, server, infrastructure, network, and storage consumption. When you understand the basic usage, you can start looking for ways to improve efficiency.

Adjust server

When servers are running around the clock, it may actually mean that they are not being fully utilized. Some servers may only process requests at certain times of the day, while other servers may rarely run applications or no longer serve a certain purpose at all. Server monitoring tools such as Zabbix, Netreo, and PRTG Network Monitor can help administrators track server utilization to determine which server functions you can integrate with fewer servers, which ones can be virtualized, and which ones can be completely disabled.

 

Adjust temperature

Data center HVAC systems are often designed to use more air conditioning, which exceeds the actual needs of the data center. Newer data center facilities can safely operate at higher temperatures, so data center facilities can maintain the overall temperature at a higher temperature to reduce the HVAC load.

Rearrange your data center

You can improve the efficiency of the data center by rearranging the data center according to energy consumption and temperature conditions. Use smart layouts (such as hot aisle and cold aisle configurations) to group hotter assets together and use HVAC vents to arrange them.

 

This type of layout requires you to understand the location of the air inlets and outlets in the facility in order to properly place assets. You can then place additional equipment in hotter areas to supplement cooling and reduce overall electricity costs and the need for HVAC systems.

Replace old facilities with more efficient facilities

Compared with new facilities, many traditional facilities use more electricity, generate more heat, and have lower physical tolerances. Newer servers, switches, racks, and HVAC technologies have more efficient processors and components. Where appropriate, these new facilities should be used, for example, at the end of the life cycle or near the end of the life cycle, or during replacement maintenance. You can also replace physical servers with virtual servers or move certain resources to the cloud to reduce the number of physical technologies you use.

 

Invest in smart facility management

IT service management requires you to collect and store a lot of information about the data center, including power consumption and data load. By analyzing this data, you can provide the environmental control system with the insights needed to optimize asset usage, thereby reducing power consumption and HVAC load.

Artificial intelligence monitoring tools can use machine learning to analyze facility data to create power usage efficiency prediction models. Some data centers also use AI-driven tools to autonomously manage HVAC functions in their facilities, combined with IoT sensors-to provide continuous temperature data to the system. The software then analyzes the data and automatically changes the HVAC system to ensure that the temperature is always kept at the optimal level. Google uses this technology to reduce the energy consumption of its data center cooling system by 40%.

 

Research on alternative environmental technologies

If companies are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, many green alternatives can be considered, such as geothermal cooling, wind power, and hydropower. For example, Verne Global uses geothermal and hydropower technology to naturally cool their facilities at its data center in Keflavík, Iceland, and TierPoint’s data center in Spokane, Washington combines internal geothermal cooling technology with Washington’s green power generation options. To reduce its footprint, Iron Mountain’s underground data center uses natural cooling. You can consider the available green options. The development of new green technologies means that you can always find new ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

 

Cooperate with green supply and organization

Establish green partnerships with suppliers and organizations that provide more sustainable options. Data centers in the United States can cooperate with EPA to determine the best green power products for their locations. You can check the sustainability level of suppliers or providers through Carbon Disclosure Project, RE100 and Sustainalytics to understand their commitment to renewable energy.