August 27, 2008 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Data center consolidation specialists RichardsoNEyres (http://www.necomputing.com/) have suggested that although many organizations have made cutting energy usage “a top priority for 2008/9”, some are taking a “do-it-yourself” approach to making data centers greener. Unfortunately, this approach may be diluting their efforts. To combat this RichardsoNEyres has offered a “six-point action plan” designed to help data centers achieve their objectives.
"Organizations going for the informal approach can lack structure in their environmental policies and this can affect the level of success that they achieve in reducing both energy costs and CO2 emissions," explained RichardsoNEyres’ director, Mr. Adam Kemp. "While computers may drive efficiency, the data centers that run businesses are often far from efficient. They are at the heart of environmental challenges created by IT but the average retailer just does not have the necessary knowledge to bring about change. They need specialist help and the actions we offer in our Thought Leadership initiatives are designed to illustrate how they can improve their carbon footprint and wider environmental position while also reducing operating costs and improving IT service delivery."
Verbatim, RichardsoNEyres’ points include:
1.
Infrastructure review: To kick off their green data centre campaigns, retailers must first undertake an IT infrastructure and data centre review, leading to an action plan to simultaneously reduce cost, improve performance and cut environmental impact.
2.
Emissions review: Conducting a data centre power and emissions review will create a foundation for understanding how to meet or exceed government or corporate environmental targets and will help meet the requirements of ISO14001 which specifies the requirements for an environmental management system.
3.
Power priority: With power costs undoubtedly continuing to rise and with many estimates suggesting that the price of running and cooling hardware will soon outstrip the cost of the hardware itself, this is clearly an area for improvement.
4.
Virtualization: Server and storage virtualization enables you to concentrate workloads onto fewer servers and storage devices. Replacing physical servers and storage devices with virtual machines reduces the energy required to run them, thus reducing CO2 emissions and running costs. It also improves utilization of available hardware.
5.
Consolidation: Whether it involves moving remote IT facilities into a centrally managed location or combining existing data centers, consolidation can reduce your carbon footprint as well as simplifying management and reducing cost.
6.
Star rating: When purchasing new IT equipment, always check its rating under the European Community Energy Star program for energy efficient office equipment.
RichardsoNEyres offers data centers infrastructure solutions designed to make them run more efficiently and help businesses run more effectively. The organization offers a number of qualified technical specialists that ensure “valuable data remains safe, secure and highly available to support business critical applications”.
