12 Top Tips to Green Your Datacentre

Network Middle East spoke to the region’s green data centre experts to find out what companies should look at when building or upgrading a data centre.

1. Conduct a data centre audit
To make the right IT choices for a green data centre, a company needs to know three things; where it is starting, what the overall savings will be, and what is the risk involved in making proposed changes. Answer all of these questions before you begin your new/upgraded data centre.

2. Understand your data and applications
An enterprise wants to keep data in the cheapest possible way, but needs to be able to access data fast when required. If you don’t understand your data you may end up providing higher performance than your customers need and pay more money for it. Tiered storage is a good way to maximise data.

3. Look at your energy efficiency

Tally up your energy bills, look at ways to maximise what you have and minimise costs, for example; utilise the heat from your appliances to heat water in the building and provide heating in the cooler months, use bio-diesel generators instead of relying on expensive electricity.

4. Implement alternative energy sources
We are lucky in this region as the majority of the Middle East has sun all year round. Solar panels on the roof of your data centre can slash you energy usage and your carbon footprint, another option is evaporative cooling, which cools air through evaporation.

5. Check your airflow
Make sure that cool air can freely flow around your racks and servers. Tangles of cables and other obstructions can reduce airflow and damage components. Make sure vents are in the correct location to ensure a good flow of air and ensure the data centre is kept at the optimum temperature.

6. Look at virtualisation and cloud implementation
Virtualisation can reduce the numbers of servers you need for your business by efficiently using 80-90% of your server capacity, less servers mean less heat, less energy consumption. With cloud, a company can either eliminate the need for a data centre altogether or reduce the number of servers needed.

7. Redesign your cooling system
Make sure your servers are enclosed in hot aisles so you can concentrate your cooling directly onto the racks, seal any holes in the walls, floors and ceilings to make sure hot air cannot get in, insulate the walls properly and make sure you have proper air ducts.

8. Use adjustable equipment
Plan for data growth by utilising modular systems. Scalable blade servers are designed to concentrate more computing power in a smaller space, requiring less power to cool. Scalable systems allow you to operate at minimum power requirements and give the capacity to grow to higher power consumption.

9. Recycle old data centre equipment
Old data centre appliances are less efficient than newer, smaller systems. Get rid of old legacy systems by donating to non-profit organisations or sending them to be recycled. When purchasing new equipment, make sure that the majority of components are recyclable.

10. Make building construction eco-friendly
Use environmentally friendly construction materials such as non-toxic paints and insulation, insert skylights and windows to utilise natural light rather than relying on energy-guzzling lighting. Landscape with native, drought-tolerant plants that require less water consumption and support local ecosystems.

11.  Make sure you have good temperature monitoring
Accurate temperature measurements are critical in a data centre and this requires a highly granular sensor network to deliver rack-level awareness of how well your cooling strategies are working. With full awareness of how your cooling is working, you can moderate your cooling requirements.

12. Implement automated power management
A growing number of devices support automated power management, allowing unused equipment to be put in a low-power state and re-powered on demand. This allows IT to manage energy as a service, gives a better view of productive work-per-watt, helps strengthen the case for green initiatives.