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Key Findings
* Data centers tend to lose massive amounts of energy, but they can be outfitted and retrofitted for energy efficiency.
* Data center servers and information and communication technology (ICT) devices often have low utilization rates and extraneous software.
* IT managers should put together an environmental strategy for data centers that includes metrics, modeling, consolidation of equipment and machines, and possible decommissioning.
* Future data centers can be greened from the ground up, with energy efficiency and other environmental considerations integrated in site selection, structure design and construction, and choice of equipment.
Recommendations
* Assess data center energy efficiency holistically, applying an end-to-end strategy that integrates the key components of the energy picture. Work closely with all the players along the energy chain.
* Establish goals, processes and responsibilities, targeting energy efficiency, as well as waste management, asset management, capacity management, support services and facilities management.
* Measure power consumption in the ICT infrastructure as granularly as possible, using metering tools at all levels (building, hardware and facilities components) to determine the amount of power going into the data center.
Analysis
Data centers are energy-intensive, so it follows that energy consumption is one of their biggest environmental issues. However, a green data center will broaden its environmental strategy beyond energy efficiency, gleaning the maximum amount of production from the minimum amount of materials and energy, without compromising performance, resilience and security.
Such an approach requires an end-to-end integrated view that includes the configuration of the building, energy efficiency, waste management, asset management, capacity management, technology architecture, support services, energy sources and operations. This research provides IT managers with an outline of the trends affecting data centers and offers strategies with which to address these changes.
Architectural Changes of Core Server and Storage Technologies
More than 80% of server shipments are made up of x86 boxes; however, enterprise data center topologies vary. Most large clients maintain legacy and niche technologies, such as Alpha, Bull GCOS, Fujitsu and BS2000. Moving off these platforms is costly, because the application functionality has to be "re-created" on a new platform, which can be difficult and expensive.
In some cases, users grow their legacy infrastructures. For example, many IBM mainframe customers have grown their installed MIPS during the past four years and will continue to do so. However, most new workloads are hosted in x86 high-density rack server environments, which are powerful enough for most current application workloads and will be used increasingly for database engines.
Utilization of infrastructure remains low for most hardware platforms. A typical x86 server uses between 5% and 10% of its available capacity during a 24-hour period — reduced instruction set computer (RISC) Unix systems are slightly better, at 10% to 20%. Emerging technologies — such as server and storage virtualization, dynamic workload management, subprocessor partitioning and metering/monitoring tools — will evolve rapidly during the next few years, resulting in increasingly real-time infrastructures. Enterprises planning data center space should factor in these changes, which means users will need to maintain legacy hardware environments or they'll be forced to move to newer platforms.
The Energy Needed to Power and Cool ICT Infrastructures Is Likely to Increase
During the next 10 years, the increased energy appetite of processors, servers, storage devices and network appliances will increase the energy required to power and cool the ICT hardware infrastructure. A shortage of prime quality data center space (especially in Europe) to host new infrastructure, as well as the rapidly increasing cost to build new data centers, will add to the problem.
For many organizations, actual energy consumption will outpace this underlying trend for a period of time. Users will get onto a "technology platform runway," and, by sticking to it and increasing the volume of hardware technology, they'll experience a sharp increase in energy consumption. However, the industry will see innovation at many levels (including servers, management software, liquid cooling and blowers), and, at some point, they'll switch to newer technologies and almost instantly reduce their energy consumption.
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