A data center can consume up to 100 or 200 times more electricity than a standard office space, which quickly translates into excessive expenses for continuing that level of energy consumption. As energy costs keep growing, more and more companies are looking for options to keep their costs down, and there are some solutions that can offset these costs while creating a greener IT environment. IT equipment – the servers and storage – can account for over half of the energy usage at a data center. In other words, most of the energy that is consumed in these centers is a result of just keeping the basics running. A lot of this is because even though the servers spend most of their time running at 20% utilization, they still draw full power most of the time. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, rack servers remain one of the major power ...