Datacenters and Pollution
Here's a WSJ blog that says, among other things, that IT datacenters are responsible for half as much pollution as the airline industry. Green was a big topic at Interop last week, and I'll have more on it in tomorrow's VoiceCon eNews, which will be posted here as well. But for now, some random facts and comments.
First of all, that statistic on emissions compared to airlines is pretty remarkable, and it makes you realize why IT should go green: If we're trying to use technology to cut down on transportation-driven CO2 emissions, we could wind up not really improving the situation that much--unless we figure out ways to use energy more efficiently in IT.
Also note that with IT emissions, the McKinsey experts quoted by the WSJ expect IT's share of the damage to increase--and of course everyone expects electricity costs to keep going up, offering us more incentive for efficiency. The WSJ cites server underutilization as a power driver, but there's another factor as well: Power over Ethernet.
In an Interop session on Building A Green IP Telephony Network, Domenic Alcaro, Director, Critical Power and Cooling Services for Schneider Electric (aka APC), pointed out that the percentage of network ports that are PoE-enabled is projected to rise from a little over 10% this year to some 35% in 2011. Furthermore, we're about to see the rollout of PoE-Plus, where the "plus" is a huge jump in the watts supported on a PoE port--from 15W to 60W. Of course, not every port will draw that maximum wattage, but the key will be to limit everything to as little as we can.
Domenic listed some of the "drivers of inefficiency" in datacenters:
On that last point, it's not just wires that can clog the raised floors and impair air flow--Domenic mentioned being in facilities where they do things like store the company Christmas tree inside the raised floor. He also projected a rogue's gallery of creative uses of box fans to cool closets; "we often joke that we should be a producer of box fans," he remarked.
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