With energy consumption by IT growing, CIOs should take steps to green their data centres, according to Schneider Electric. The Australian carbon tax, effective July 1, puts additional pressure on businesses to increase efficiency. The data centre owner who consumes too much energy “will quickly disappear from the market,” says Schneider Electric IT senior vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan, Philippe Arsonneau. “The growth in data centres is significantly increasing and impacting energy co
“Cap and trade” was all the rage among Democrats a few years ago, but after careful consideration, I decided that it was too corruptible and ineffective, and decided to support a carbon tax instead. Breaking with my tribe on that point was ...
Data centre provider, Fujitsu, has spent $60 million adding a fourth data hall to its 6,700 metre Tier III facility in Noble Park, Melbourne, with the option of adding a further two data halls in the future if customer demand warrants it. Included in the $60 million price tag were security enhancements such as on-site biometric systems, access card readers and digital closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras. The facility hosts data from enterprise and government customers.
Microsoft has committed to become carbon neutral beginning on July 1, the start of the company’s new fiscal year. The shift results from three years of internal discussions within the company to improve Microsoft’s carbon footprint and environmental performance. The company will roll out the new changes, including a new accounting system, across its operations in over 100 countries. The new accounting system at Microsoft will be based on an internal carbon fee that the company’s finance department will charge to all of the company’s business groups. Each division will be tasked with finding a more efficient way to offset the carbon emissions associated with their fuel consumption and air travel. Hence the new carbon strategy at the company’s Redmond, WA headquarters and beyond will have three pillars: be lean, be green and be accountable.
The CRC carbon tax, which the IT industry fears will increase data centre costs, is to be simplified once again, according to proposals published yesterday which are open to consultation till June. The CRC was put under notice by the Chancellor in his budget speech as too expensive. The Department’s proposals hope to save the tax by cutting the administrative cost by around two-thirds. The CRC imposes a tax on energy use, and rates organisations in a league table of efficiency, as a way to push companies to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Criticised for its complexity, simplification of the CRC has been on the cards for some time and last week’s budget started speculation the tax might be abolished.
A lack of capacity and power issues is keeping data centre operators and managers awake at night, according to the latest annual data centre trends survey.
The survey, which was undertaken by nlyte Software Ltd, a data centre performance specialist, also revealed that many organisations remain blissfully aware of the arrival of the CRC carbon tax.
The company surveyed 100 IT professionals at the recent Data Centre World Conference and Expo in London to get their input on the current state of their organisations’ data centre estate.
For the second year running data centre capacity concerns, and a focus on cutting IT operational costs (such as power and cooling) continue to cause the most headaches for IT professionals, leading to concern that companies aren’t thinking strategically about data centres.
