Is Your Data Center Saving You Money?
In a world where resources are becoming more and more costly, conserving those resources not only helps the environment but has a clear impact on an organization’s bottom line. The greatest energy consumer for any given small to mid-size business is, perhaps, its data center. Yet, for many businesses, the amount of data center electricity usage seems like a necessity…
How can you be sure your organization’s data center is maximizing its efficiency and minimizing its energy usage?
Energy expert Neil Rasmussen published a whitepaper called “Implementing Energy Efficient Data Centers” that discusses some technical solutions to optimizing energy consumption for data centers. First, he points out that many businesses are spending more than necessary on data center energy costs, maintaining that “simple no-cost decisions made in the design of a new data center can result in savings of 20-50% of the electrical bill.”
He goes on to explain that there are two types of energy reduction for data centers: temporary consumption avoidance and structural consumption avoidance. The main difference between the two methods is that the first avoids energy use without reducing installed power capacity and the second avoids energy use with reducing installed power capacity.
Unfortunately, for those without a specific understanding of power and energy as they relate to data centers, the rest of Rasmussen’s paper becomes a rather technical discussion of solutions, suited only for knowledgeable IT staff or computer technicians.
Still, the paper emphatically concludes by stating those solutions have the ability, in some cases, to save companies tens of thousands of dollars over time with little to no upfront investment. If that sounds too good to be true, well, it might be. But a claim like that is at least worth having your local information technology management firm look into.
[photo: mrkathika]
Additional Resources:
Data Management Tips for Your Small Business
Tags: computer technician, data center electricity usage, data center energy costs, Energy, energy consumption, energy reduction, information technology, IT staff