Data Centre Efficiency

Green Infrastructure Is a Byproduct of Good Business Practices.

Green initiatives are often seen as "soft" and "feel good" initiatives that are divorced from the hardnosed analysis and implementation activities that drive revenues and cut costs. According to Logan Scott, Marketing Manager for IBM’s Green Infrastructure Initiative, nothing could be further from the truth.

In this BisTech Reports podcast, Logan Scott describes how the hard economic realities of stressed energy resources coupled with growing demands from enterprise data centres are driving up serious costs and carry significant business implications.

Scott shares best practices in aligning corporate green strategy with IT initiatives and data centre performance to achieve core mission objectives in a cost-effective manner.

• Download the green infrastructure podcast (MP3, 13:26minutes, 7.73MB)
• Podcast Transcript (26KB)
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IT Managers Discover the High Cost of Ignoring Data Center Efficiency Problems
By Steve Lee and Lane F. Cooper, BisTechReports.Com

Achieving data centre efficiency is now a critical corporate priority and is forcing IT managers to think about how much juice their operations are consuming. In the past year, IBM conducted more than 30 energy assessments around the world and found the average data centre infrastructure efficiency (DCiE) index was 43 percent. This means 43 cents of every energy dollar are spent to power IT, while 57 cents are spent on the physical infrastructure for conditioned power and cooling.

Energy is used by the IT equipment (servers, storage and network equipment), as well as the physical infrastructure equipment, like the computer room air conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies and chillers. As a result 60 to 70 percent of the energy in a data centre is used on the physical infrastructure equipment, while only 30 to 40 percent is used on the IT equipment.