Going green has become a compelling factor

A green data center refers to a repository for storage, management, and

dissemination of data in which mechanical, lighting, electrical, and computer

systems are designed for maximum energy efficiency. With increasing adoption of

IT, consumption of energy is also increasing. Off late, the expenditure on

energy has surpassed the cost spent on IT gears by a company. To address this

issue, APC has been advocating changing the legacy approach of data center

architecture. In an interview with Dataquest, Subodh Tagare, of APCMGE, talks

about various aspects of green data centers. Excerpts

Subodh Tagare, marketing manager (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh region), APCMGE

Why this sudden hype for green data centers?



Green is the essence of adding value to customers in an attempt to tie it

with an underlined bigger trend, which is the concern for environment and

climate. There are talks of environment-friendly technologies, but adoption is

based on two objectives: first, the positive impact on environment, and second,

it should have some value for decision makers, especially the IT team, which

impacts faster adoption process.

What is driving enterprises to go for green data centers?



Everyone recognizes that there are issues to be addressed in environment.

Energy consumption is becoming the biggest issue in data centers. Till last

year, the cost of IT was more than the cost of energy. Now the cost of energy is

far greater than the cost of computing and networking gear. In a way, economy

has ensured adoption of greener data centers.

Due to design elements of a data center, half of the energy consumed is

wasted. Companies have to rethink the way they are designing data centers. This

has led to customers thinking of adopting blade servers.

One of the major constraints for adoption of blade servers is cost. What

will drive customers then?



It is expensive, therefore, it is preventing adoption at this point of time.

Since 2003, we have been talking about changing the architecture of data

centers. Now it is a given thing and customers are recognizing it. The first

stage was compaction that started happening with chips and the second stage was

physical consolidation of data centersIndia has gone through this phase. Now we

see people talking about virtualization. It is after this stage that we see the

takeoff of blade servers. This might take another two to three years.

How are vendors responding to green data centers?



Software people are looking at creating virtual servers. At chip layer,

vendors are trying to deliver more processing capacity for each watt consumed.

At the server layer, vendors have already developed, and adoption is taking

place. The physical layer vendors, like us, are focusing on how the whole thing

fits into the system. Instead of selling best-in-breed components, delivering

the system to customers has become far more important. We are attempting to move

away from components to system along with services.

Further, the legacy approach in designing data centers has to be changed. We

have changed the monolithic UPS to modular UPS, which is scalable. This

eliminates waste and consumes less energy. This also reduces the usage of lead.

Ensuring modular data center also eliminates waste.

Has going green become a compelling factor?



Yes. It becomes a compelling factor as it reduces the cost on energy

consumption. By going green, energy consumption can be reduced by 70%.

Significant adoption has been witnessed in the last two years. It is far more

important for us to keep reminding people about it.

Dheeksha Rabindra



dheekshar@cybermedia.co.in