Different Paths To The Green Data Center All Lead To Success

The paths to green data centers are varied, and in the end, companies tend to adopt green data center strategies that are compatible with their cultures and investment habits.

Three cases in point are large enterprises in different vertical industries: First National Bank of Nebraska, an Omaha, Nebraska-based financial services company; Highmark , the largest health care insurer in Pennsylvania; and Dade County, which supports the needs of Dade County, Florida citizens, including citizens of the city of Miami. All three enterprises have implemented successful, but different, green strategies.

First National Bank of Nebraska

First National Bank of Nebraska serves over 6.6 million banking customers. When Ken Kucera walked through the door in 2003 and saw 600 Wintel servers, 40 Sun servers, a Tandem computer and an IBM System z mainframe in his data center, his immediate thought was to reduce the server headcount in the data center, simplify IT architecture and save on power and other costs. For instance, using a mainframe virtualization strategy, Kucera shrunk his Wintel server footprint by 88 percent.

Part of the TCO/ROI methodology employed by Kucera's team included analysis of the energy consumption and cost of operation of virtually every IT asset. "The server consolidation allowed us to keep the lights on for less," said Kucera. "It also allowed us to move more persons from maintenance functions. I would estimate that 60 percent of the IT staff was working on new applications, and that 40 percent was committed to maintenance and daily operations before consolidation. Now, that percentage split has moved to 70 percent of IT personnel on new development and initiatives, and 30 percent for maintenance and daily operations."

HighmarkHighmark started with a focus on green construction: "We began our corporate green initiative with the construction of a new data center that included sustainable site planning, water efficiencies, energy efficiencies, conservation of materials and resources and indoor environmental quality," said Mark Wood, Highmark's Director of IT. Local utility rate caps, expiring in 2010, put Highmark up against a threshold where it was facing the prospect of a potential $11 million electrical upgrade to its existing data center.

A new data center made sense as a forward-thinking alternative--and it made Wood's job as IT Director easier, since he didn't have to twist management's arm about the importance of greening IT: "We suddenly recognized that we were sitting with an environmentally friendly data center, but none of the IT equipment was green," said Wood.  IT became the second stage of Highmark's green focus.

Dade County

Dade County, Florida followed the path of a multi-year green data center strategy that takes account of budget constraints. Early on, they recognized that their green data center implementation would have to be gradual--but they still managed to capitalize on an opportunity to purchase a state-of-the-art data center formerly occupied by a network hosting provider that had gone out of business. Gus Chicola, Director of Dade County's Data Center Service Division, says: "The building was designed to be a computer facility, complete with category 5 weather resistance (hurricane proofing), state of the art water and air cooling. It was an opportune deal for us, so we developed a plan to migrate our 911 emergency dispatch services there." 

The migration plan also includes virtualizing IT assets and systematically re-locating some of them to the new data center. They also added something new: a local disaster recovery hotsite.

Lessons Learned

The First National, Highmark and Dade County experiences illustrate that there is no single path to the green data center. Companies find ways to make green data centers happen in ways that complement their cultures and their resources. A green data center project demands significant investment in dollars and manpower. It takes a toll on the business because the resources committed to the data center are subtracted from the development and deployment of new applications that the business continues to demand. To move the green data center forward, here are some lessons learned: