If not now, when?
Energy Usage: circle6 At the other end of the spectrum there are data centres
The Bottom Line
with PUEs of anything from 2 up to 7 or 8. A PUE
In a few short years data centres will emit more greenhouse
of 2 or more is becoming more and more unacceptable
gases than airlines. The cost implications of this are not yet
these days, because it means that more energy is being
clear, but if they are half as heavy for our sector as they
spent on powering infrastructure for IT than on powering
have been for the airline industry, we will need to fasten our
the equipment itself. These are typically in-house data
seatbelts.
centres based on legacy equipment, but they do include
some data centres managed by dedicated providers.
At the same time Moore’s Law has driven the cost of
powering IT higher than the cost of the IT equipment itself.
circle6 Today’s green data centres lie between these extremes.
Energy prices are rising too. According to The Uptime
The PUE of Interxion data centres, for instance, is now
Institute, the cost of power and infrastructure for IT as a
nearly as low as it can go, as a result of a six year
percentage of budget is moving from 1-3 percent a few
programme of measurement and year-on-year improvement
years ago into double figures. All of the factors driving an
which took us from what we decided was an unacceptably
energy efficiency programme – environmental, political,
high level to our present position in the front rank of green
corporate, commercial - are converging into a single
data centre providers.
common-sense imperative; save money by saving energy.
Starting now.
Green Standards
How this compares with the rest of the sector is not yet
Green Data Centres: Walking the Talk
easy to say with authority, but Interxion has been working
Some people would still rather talk about green data
hard to make sure that everyone will know as soon as
centres than build and operate them. This can lead to
possible. We have been collaborating with the Uptime
confusion. So how do you recognise a Green Data Centre?
Institute EMEA and The Green Grid to agree a set of
It boils down to measurement. The key calculation is Power
universal usable ratings for energy and power efficiency.
Usage Effectiveness (PUE), or the science of maximising the
Progress in this area is also being shared with the Joint
amount of useful power delivered to the IT equipment for
Research Committee of the European Commission, which
each unit passing through the data centre transformer. Total
has been tasked with developing the industry’s first pan-
data centre energy usage divided by IT equipment energy
European voluntary code of practice.
usage gives you PUE.
The standards will simply reward existing best practice.
Data Centre Infrastructure Power Overhead - that is,
circle6 So, for instance, the green dream data centre would have
a PUE of 1, which means that every watt of power at the
transformer load over IT hardware load - can be converted
transformer is delivered direct to the IT equipment.
to a percentage value to create DCi-PE – Data Centre
Unfortunately this is not physically possible as some
Infrastructure Power Efficiency. This measure was
infrastructure services such as cooling etc. always have to
developed by Interxion and circulated to both the Uptime
be provided.
Institute and The Green Grid. In addition, I expect that PUE
In order to minimise the power overhead, a green data centre
should never be over-specified for the task it performs.
This is why the modular data centre build-out approach has
now become the norm across the industry
22
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76