Greening Up your Data Center from the Inside Out.
The Green Data Center
Every DC is different, so we’ll focus on general things that should work no matter how your DC is configured. One of the best places to start is getting a LEED assessment of your building(s). The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating SystemTM is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. This assessment will provide you a baseline with current and potential scores based on criteria like whether your air conditioning has an economizer mode.
The bank where I worked had an assessment done for our DCs and it identified several quick and inexpensive changes:
- Monitor computer room humidity and program all AC units to operate in a way that prevents them from “fighting” each other (one unit humidifies while another dehumidifies).
- Measure the cycling of AC units within your cross connect and high density rooms so that only the units required for cooling the load are operating, leaving the remaining units in a standby mode. Be sure to switch “lead” and “backup” AC units on a regular basis to avoid over-stressing one unit.
Learn more about LEED, and about BREEAM in the EU. You can also read the Full Story here.
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Next time: “Encouraging Invention and Innovation Globally.”
