Across all industries and sectors, managers are trying to find ways to reduce energy consumption and increase efficiencies. Perhaps that sentiment is most true in the data center as data center managers work to monitor data center power and maximize efficiencies.
Recently, the office in charge of IT infrastructure for California announced that the Golden State was on the right path to reaching IT energy consumption reduction targets which were set by a mandate established in 2010. The guideline was for IT and telecom equipment power use to be reduced by 20 percent by July 1, 2011 and by 30 percent by July 1, 2012.
By the end of April, California had reduced its IT energy consumption by about 22.5m kWh per year through data center consolidation and improvements in PC power management, the California Technology Agency said in a statement.“Through PC power management and data center consolidation the state has significantly reduced the energy consumption of IT and telecommunications equipment,” Adrian Farley, state CTO, said in a statement.
Part of the reason California has been in line with its reduction goal is because the state’s Cannery data center in Sacramento recently closed – which contributed to more than half of the reported energy savings. The closing of the facility was completed last June, allowing the state to decommission about 75,000 square feet of raised floor. This was a 25 percent reduction in the state’s physical data center footprint and a 12.5m-kWh reduction in annual power consumption by its technology infrastructure, according to a Datacenter Dynamics report.
As states like California deal with legislation to reduce energy consumption, companies everywhere are trying to monitor the trend as well, particularly seeing whether data centers can alleviate the energy consumption problem.
Recently, Server Technology’s (News - Alert) Senior Director of Software and Firmware Engineering Calvin Nicholson sat down with TMCnet to discuss what is happening in the data center world as the cost for data center power continues to increase while the demand for more power increases exponentially.
“Their interest in efficiency is really about saving money and cost,” Nicholson said. “We like to believe that they want to save the earth and that they are green, and I think some of the California companies take that seriously, but in general it’s because they see that it’s really affecting their bottom line.”
“Because of that, there’s a bunch of different areas where things have changed,” Nicholson added. “They are looking at efficiencies of the devices that are in the data center. The UPSs that are on the data center floor have gotten a lot more efficient, and the power supplies and the servers and the devices have gotten a lot more efficient.”
Server Technology, a company that works to design, develop and provide the world's best power management products and system, has been a leader in the industry for the past 25 years.