Defining the green data center

http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=23282

According to the results of a recent Digital Realty Trust survey of senior decision makers at leading North American corporations, respondents expressed concern about the lack of industry standards for green datacenters “Companies are looking for leadership and clarity on how to define a green datacenter, how to design their green datacenter plans and how to put them into action,” stated Jim Smith, vice-president of engineering at Digital Realty Trust. “In the past, the question may have been how to convince companies of the value of green datacenters. The good news is that is no longer a problem. Companies are convinced. The challenge is that the datacenter industry needs to step up and show the way with clear standards.”

Some of the results of this year’s survey reported that 51 per cent of companies have a green datacenter strategy, a decline since the 2007 study when 55 per cent of companies answered the question affirmatively. The study noted that this could indicate that corporate adoption of green datacenter strategies has stalled or taken a step back since last year.

An interesting article, discussing the ‘green data center’. The more we talk about our own individual vision of the green data center (as well as my corporate one), the more we talk about it, the more we can move forward, discuss the ‘standards’ for data center evolution – best practice, operationally and financially. Just how is the best way to fund a data center from an enterprise standpoint? Is it really cheaper to buy in my space, to request a data center be provisioned or do I just outsource it? Exciting times are ahead, we’ll have to see, it’s going to depend on many factors, but as a guide, think of the space needed now and in future, what to do in terms of corporate social responsibility, not to mention the concept of how your IT fits in within your business. Is it IT you want or the functionality of IT service? If you’re a small business with a web based system hosted externally, do you really need your own servers, your own Exchange, file storage? Should you not buy it in?

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