The Greening of Data Centres

Much is being written lately about the havoc that regular data centres play with the environment, using excessive amounts of electricity… and the growing pressures of the internet loads are only going to increase the carbon requrements of data centres.

It’s all well and good to feel green, and think green, unless it impacts your ability to twitter and google away your day.

Companies such as ISPs or online retailers that use the data centers could have the added benefit of being able to claim that their web services are powered by clean power, which is a small but growing interest for IT firms.

Plans are afoot to drastically reduce the dirtiness of data centres…

• Google’s going to go to the ocean for power and cooling.
• In the past 5 months, TELUS has announced 2 new data centre builds - one in Quebec and one in BC that take advantage of some serious GREEN planning.

Don’t feel alone in your efforts to make your company greener. Leaders in other markets—from companies like Boeing and Toyota to government agencies such as the State of California—are making serious investments in making their operations and products more energy efficient.

California utility PG&E said it has given Internet services company NetApp a $1.43 million rebate — the largest new construction incentive the utility has awarded — for its efforts at an engineering data center in Sunnyvale, Calif.

All steps in the right direction.

:-)