The green data center: Energy-efficient computing in the 21st century

Chapter 1: Building a business case for data center energy efficiency

This chapter addresses the following areas:

• Power consumption trends in the data center: How is computing demand outpacing Moore's Law?
• Why energy efficiency matters to ROI and the environment
• How to implement energy efficiency in the data center
• Metrics that measure "green" progress.

In the coming months, data center managers will play a leading role, as Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and C-level executives turn their attention to data center energy use. But convincing higher-ups to be proactive about energy consumption demands a solid business case.

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Chapter 2: Energy-efficient server technologies

This chapter addresses the following areas:

• Energy efficient server power supplies: 80 Plus and Energy Star
• Engineering more efficient server fans: how they work and when they will come to market
• Improvements in processor technologies: the impact of such developments as updated power-down features and multicore processors
• The impact of server virtualization: the impact of virtualization technology on consolidating hardware as well as the hard-dollar savings.

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Chapter 3: Data center infrastructure efficiency

This chapter addresses the following areas:

• How to deploy cooling, distribute power efficiently in the data center
• The most common and costly mistakes in deploying conventional hot/cold aisle cooling
• How users should deploy UPSes to be more efficient and the role of modular UPSes
• How to evaluate new technologies, including economizers, DC power and liquid cooling.

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Chapter 4: Energy-efficient storage technologies

This chapter, written by Alan Radding, focuses on ways to reduce storage energy consumption such as:

• Switching to fewer, higher-capacity disks
• Using slower disks
• Backing up to tape, not disk
• Virtualizing and consolidating storage.

Green computing has become a national passion that is spreading globally. As a key element of the IT infrastructure, storage is expected to play its part by adopting green storage practices.

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Chapter 5: A step-by-step guide to greening the data center

The previous four chapters of this data center efficiency eBook laid out the case for going green in the data center and the tactics to achieve energy efficiency across the server, storage and infrastructure environments. This final chapter helps IT managers pull it all together and execute on a data center efficiency project, step-by-step.

Step 1: Convince the C-Suite to pursue energy efficiency. How much do you spend on energy now? How soon will you have to build a new data center to keep up with your company's growth? Use that information to get a mandate to pursue efficiency from the C-Level executives.

Step 2: Measure data center energy consumption. Set up a simple metric like Power Usage Effectiveness to get a baseline of how much power is going to the servers and how much is being lost on cooling and infrastructure. Set goals to improve the ratio.

Step 3: Get started with IT asset management. Tackle IT inefficiencies by consolidating applications, deleting deadweight servers, implementing active power saving features and specifying energy efficient hardware.

Step 4: Tackle facility fundamentals. Implement hot-aisle/cold-aisle, seal up that floor, raise the voltage on your PDUs from 120 to 208 and take advantage of free cooling when available.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Matt Stansberry has been reporting on the convergence of IT, facility management and energy issues since 2003. He has been writing and editing for SearchDataCenter.com since its launch in January 2005. Prior to that, he was managing editor of Today's Facility Manager magazine and a staff writer for the U.S. Green Building Council. He can be reached at mstansberry@techtarget.com.