The Harsh Facts of Green IT update from March 2008

Barely a day seems to by without either a vendor or a government official warning us of the perils of power-hungry servers and storage gear. But has all the talk of "green IT" and data centers powered by renewable energy sources clouded our view of what is really going on out in storageland?

The harsh reality is that, for all the talk of energy-saving storage technologies, many organizations are simply building bigger and bigger data centers -- a plan that could implode.

"Anyone who says that data centers are slowing down, just needs to look at the press again and see what is going on," said IDC analyst Vernon Turner at his firm's Green IT Forum in New York last week. "Microsoft and Google seem to be in a war to see who can get the most square feet in the world, and dominance in terms of data centers."

Google has already hit the headlines for its plans to build "green" data centers in Oklahoma and Iowa.

There may still not be enough space. The demands of modern data centers make the search for large-scale renewable energy a massive challenge. At the same time, there is a growing fear that before users have really got their heads around the issue of green servers and storage, they may find change forced upon them."In Tokyo, they have the same problems that we have here in New York -- not enough power and not enough space," said Turner, explaining that the city's top 800 energy-consuming buildings are being targeted for energy reduction by local utilities.

Some 100 of these buildings house data centers, potentially causing a significant shift in the Japanese capital's technology infrastructure. "Data center operators are worried that the [green] efforts could force them out of Tokyo," explained Turner, warning that a similar scenario could easily play out on this side of the Pacific.

Clearly, now is the time to get to grips with data center power footprint -- some CIOs are already starting to issue the type of RFP that would have caused laughter in the boardroom not so many years ago.

"We're seeing more and more bids from customers going to vendors saying 'What is your corporate social responsibility like?'," said Turner. "This is not something that we think is a fad."

With users expected to install six times the amount of server capacity and 69 times the amount of storage between 2000 and 2010, it's more important than ever for IT pros to get data center energy under control. If that doesn't happen, powers beyond the data center may step in.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.