February 26, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Green issues, which played a major factor in the promotion of web hosting and data center services throughout 2008, are no longer dominant issues for data centers which need to reduce costs, it was reported recently. A survey of registered attendees at this year’s
Data Centre World in the United Kingdom suggested only one in eight data center managers cited green issues as their primary reason for establishing energy saving strategies. The previous year one in three attendees suggested green issues were fueling there energy efficiency drives.
The survey further suggested that while carbon issues were no longer at the forefront of policy, registered attendees were still very concerned about lowering power consumption as a means of saving money. Over two thirds of data centers are actively minimizing power consumption. However, 8% those asked had no concern about future power consumption and were not implementing energy saving initiatives. None of those asked felt their data centers were optimized for energy efficiency.
“Last year, energy efficiency and power conservation were the words on everyone’s lips, from Government-backed green initiatives, to businesses and households being encouraged to ‘go green’, today energy efficiency and power conservation are instead the main tools for keeping afloat during the credit crunch,” Data Centre World Director Sarah Williams was reported as saying. “It is vital for data centers to cut costs at every possible opportunity in order to maintain their businesses, especially given the reduced customer demand at the moment. It is fantastic that so many data centers are taking steps to reduce their energy consumption - for whatever reason - as this can only have positive effects in the long run.”
While in 2008 many within the web hosting industry seemed very sincere about green issues, there was always a potential undercurrent that green concerns may have just been vogue, and that a bandwagon had occurred. The data from this survey potentially supports that idea, at least in the United Kingdom. It would be interesting to see what would happen if an energy alternative emerged that is cheaper than traditional energy sources, but has none of the environmental benefits of alternative sources.
