What comes in your mind when you hear the word ‘green’? You would instantly think that it might be something related to the environment. Yes, the word ‘green’ has become synonymous with environment-friendly. The same goes when we talk about a green data center. A green data center is a data center setup that deploys an environment-friendly infrastructure.
According to Nature, the data centers are responsible for 0.3 percent of the overall carbon emissions. This is because the traditional data centers utilize the non-renewable sources of energy like electricity for running servers and the supporting infrastructure. They also use fuel for generators used as a power backup. Green data centers try to resolve the global energy crisis by implementing solutions that utilize the abundant renewable sources of energy on our planet, like hydro, wind, and solar energy.
In 2019, Facebook announced that it used 75 percent of renewable sources of energy to power its data centers. It is estimated that in 2018, the electricity consumption by data centers was about 1 percent of the entire world consumption (source: Network World).
VIRTUAL MACHINES -
One of the major solutions that the green data centers are deploying to reduce power consumption is virtualization. A virtualized server environment refers to optimizing the server resources through the creation of Virtual Machines (VMs). A VM can be thought of as a virtual server with its own resources and operating system. Hence, one physical server can be divided into multiple VMs that can be utilized by various users at once. Therefore, where the entire servers were used to cater to one process earlier, with virtualization, it can be used to accommodate various processes.
CLOUD TECHNOLOGY -
Another solution that helps in reducing power consumption is cloud technology. The cloud helps in the overallocation of resources due to its highly flexible nature. It implies that the resources that are not in use by a user can be distributed to other users, or turned off completely, so they do not use any power. Hence, the users can scale their resources, without the data center partners having to add more servers.
Since the data center majorly utilizes renewable sources of energy (which cost nothing), the cost of electricity and fuel required to run the data centers in reduced significantly. Moreover, the green data center implement procedures to recycle e-waste (like hardware equipment) from the data centers, which provided them with a new source of revenue.
The data centers are slowly but surely realizing the importance of going green to sustain the environment and optimize their budget. There is still time that we start thinking about the environment and adopt green practices, not only in the data centers but also in our daily routine.
source: Colocation America