NetApp has the distinction of being the first data center to win the coveted Energy Star for data centers label from the Environmental Protection Agency. The guidelines (of course) are already receiving some criticism, but when facilities feature as much variety in style and location as data centers do, this is to be expected.
Not only did NetApp get the Energy Star - they scored ninety-nine out of a hundred possible points. Only seventy-five points are required to secure the certification.
The facility is an excellent example for other companies looking to improve energy efficiency and is frequently toured by data center representatives looking into the matter. They use overhead air distribution instead of a raised-floor strategy - and clearly it's working out for them. They're also able to use outside-air cooling at their location in North Carolina, maintaining an average temperature of 74 degrees inside.
The honor of receiving the first Energy Star certification definitely seems deserved, since NetApp apparently saves 95,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
As I've often discussed, although at first the systems are bound to be flawed, it's important to strive for consistency between facilities in the interest of protecting the environment and ensuring the best possible service to customers.
A lot of important figures in the industry collaborated in developing the recommendations - besides the Green Grid, there was ASHRAE, the EPA’s Energy Star Program, the United States Green Building Council, and the Uptime Institute, among others. It’s for dedicated data centers, and a Version 2 is in the works which will apply to mixed-use facilities.
PUE has historically been difficult to trust because of different ways of calculating it, and this represents yet another good, solid step towards regularizing the data center industry and achieving reliability and consistency from facility to facility.
I don’t know who would be reading our blog who wouldn’t already know, but just in case: PUE stands for Power Usage Effectiveness, and it involves comparing how much total power is used in a facility with what goes to actual IT equipment.
Here at Team Silverback the Green Gorilla worries a lot about the sustainability of data centers. Data Center Knowledge has just put out a very thoughtful article on the subject, and I have some thoughts on it all as well.
There are a few different ways data centers (and other facilities) are working on attaining sustainability. Obvious strategies include solar energy and wind-powered energy. Less obvious include location-specific geothermal energy, as in Iceland which I have often discussed, and also waste-heat reclamation strategies.
Because they're so ubiquitously possible, I particularly like waste-heat reclamation strategies. All facilities generate waste-heat, right? So why not use it? Here are some good ones which use their waste heat productively that DCK came up with: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/data-centers-that-recycle-waste-heat/.
Although using actually renewable energy is harder than purchasing carbon-offsets and that kind of thing, it seems like a good, immediate and practical way to deal with the problems the environment is facing partly as a result of large, high-energy facilities like data centers. At one of the schools I've attended, the administration got funding to build solar panels over a few of the parking lots and powered several buildings that way. Doing so was not a complete solution to energy waste, but at least it helps on a daily basis. That kind of effort is good to see and sets a positive example - even when it's impractical to power an entire facility by renewable means, progress can be made bit by bit.
Data center humidity is a pretty controversial topic in the industry. Managers and operators of data centers disagree on standards for it, as they tend to do with other in-facility climate decisions as well.
Our C.O.O. Don Small says, “Interestingly, data center operators in humid climates believe data centers should be more humid than data center operators in arid climates do. I’ve spoken with at least a dozen power and cooling experts over the past 15 years, building data centers, and no one agrees on a standard for humidity levels.”
He agrees that ASHRAE has probably the closest thing to a standard of anyone, with certainly the most technical engineering data behind their recommendations. The issue there is that if a facility falls outside ASHRAE’s recommendation, they can’t say that they comply with standards in this area, which could potentially be unfair to a perfectly well-operated facility.
Another source of controversy surrounding the subject is where the importance of it comes from exactly. Is it relevant to equipment functionality, or are we more concerned about environmental conscientiousness? Some combination of both? The Green Gorilla would like to know. Yet another side to the issue is whether dew point or relative humidity is the most relevant standard.
Who has thoughts on the matter? I’m having trouble finding recent data on the subject, and would love to hear from someone who knows what’s up.
Elizabeth English
Photo by tatters:) under flickr creative commons license
What with the EPA’s recent release of their Energy Star certification for data centers, it seems like a good time to keep regularizing the industry, so the Uptime Institute’s standard for Operational Sustainability is very aptly timed.
The Institute’s Tier system has long been influential where enterprise data centers are concerned, and releasing new standards and continuing to call facilities to task is definitely helpful. Operational Sustainability mostly refers to performance in the three areas of management and operations, building characteristics, and site location.
Usually the word “sustainability” brings an environmental connotation, but that’s not the point of this new standard. It’s more to do with redundancy and maintaining the ongoing sharpness of a facility’s standards. Of course the Institute’s own site will have more, but those three categories are pretty much what you would expect - management and operations is exactly what it sounds like, likewise with building characteristics, and site location is mostly related to natural disasters. It looks like they’re leaving environmental concerns to the EPA, which seems very rational.
The three categories are prioritized in the order I’ve listed them, and weighted according to abnormal incident reports which the Institute has catalogued. An example of the weighting: these “AIRs” show that 70% of outages the Institute hears about are because a person somewhere screwed something up, which falls under management and operations - hence its #1 status on the list of elements making up the new standard.
See Data Center Knowledge’s article or ZDnet’s for more. Reliability and standardization between facilities is a noble goal, and it’s encouraging to see it becoming more of a reality lately.
Data Center Blog - Data Center Migration Experts
NetApp has the distinction of being the first data center to win the coveted Energy Star for data centers label from the Environmental Protection Agency. The guidelines (of course) are already receiving some criticism, but when facilities feature as much variety in style and location as data centers do, this is to be expected.
Data center humidity is a pretty controversial topic in the industry. Managers and operators of data centers disagree on standards for it, as they tend to do with other in-facility climate decisions as well.
seems like a good time to keep regularizing the industry, so the Uptime Institute’s standard for Operational Sustainability is very aptly timed.
