Powering with rather than against mother nature - by tate cantrell

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Oct 7 2009) Construction , Monitoring , Power and Cooling

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   Product downloading is fast becoming a very popular delivery option for the selling and distribution of large digital items like movies, video games and software. This phenomenon could also prove to be hugely beneficial for the environment, according to a recent WSP Group study of Microsoft Office distribution.  The report concludes that "digital delivery reduced total tonnes of carbon emissions by 88%."  Since this report came out, a number of folks have expressed skepticism surrounding such a dramatic shift.  After all, the computers and data centers needed for delivery of these downloads have historically been known to leave fairly large carbon footprints.

   I’m guessing the folks at WSP and Microsoft could see the suspicion in advance as they made sure as part of their calculations to account for the data centers hosting software downloads, as well as transfer of software through the web and even the energy used by a customer’s personal computer to download the Office 2007 program.  Still, when compared to carbon emissions associated with off-the-shelf retail software units, the report found that the emissions savings associated with downloading one copy of Office 2007 are roughly equal to one gallon of gasoline.  The question then remains - how can such a dramatic reduction be possible? 

   Matt Peterson seemed to hit it on the nose in a recent blog in which he points to Microsoft’s progressive data center strategy as a key ingredient to this dramatic difference.  Microsoft is pushing the energy efficiency of its data centers by focusing on aggressively reducing power consumption with natural cooling from the environment.  As forty percent of electricity in data centers is consumed by server cooling alone, it looks like Microsoft is making a pretty wise decision.  This shifting focus on working with Mother Nature instead of against her is bringing a great deal of attention to locations like Iceland and other optimal landscapes with free, natural cooling.  Like Microsoft, it seems many companies are seeing the benefits of this two-fold solution for saving both money and the environment.  

   It’s interesting to see how innovative trends like product downloading will only continue to drive demand for both servers and their cooling requirements.  As companies go virtual, a naturally-cooled data center will allow them to cut costs as dramatically as cutting their carbon footprint.  In fact, we’ve created an Energy/Carbon Calculator tool to demonstrate what kinds of carbon emission and cost savings a company can realize by taking advantage of free cooling and moving their data center to Iceland.  With these numbers in mind, it seems as though going virtual with green data centers is a perfect one-two punch for the environment and may be instrumental in the transition to a low-carbon economy. 

   
   

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