primarily by environmental con- cerns, while only 30 percent said eco- SOLAR POWER BRINGS GREEN PAYOFF
nomic considerations were the most
important factor. That flies in the HERE’S BEEN A LOT WRITTEN ABOUT virtualization to keep its power costs face of what many analysts, includ- Thow data centers are trying to down. “In most data centers, the servers
ing Gartner’s Mingay, say—that eco- stabilize or lower their ever-increasing are running at 4 percent to 8 percent
nomic savings are really the primary electrical power requirements. capacity,” Corrales said. “Our data center
driver for green IT initiatives. Most of the current green IT stories operations team saw this issue and pur-
Seasoning the mix with a dash involve new cooler-running microproces- chased a solution to stop it. Now, instead
of ambivalence, only 26 percent of sors, improved server architecture, more of assigning each server an application
respondents with green IT initiatives efficient power supplies and cooling or a task, virtualization allows us to put
actually have designated a specific systems, and better control over server individual physical servers into their own
budget for green technologies—the management. There has been less talk virtual machines, increasing the physical
rest, presumably, implement their about alternative power sources, such as servers’ efficiency and shrinking our data
green IT strategies through regular diesel and natural gas-fueled generators, center’s server footprint, cooling needs
budget items. flywheel-based UPSes (uninterruptible and electricity usage.”
The survey also found there is still power supplies), wind power and solar All the servers run VMware technol-
something of a disconnect between power. ogy, with a 30-to-1 ratio of virtual serv-
the belief that IT energy consump- Now, there’s at least one new ers to physical servers, Corrales said.
tion creates an environmental impact data center that fits exclusively into Virtualization also is helping to keep
and the influence of environmental the solar-power category. It’s located Greenest Host up and running 24/7.
concerns over green IT purchasing near Temecula, Calif.—about 90 “With the help of virtualization, that’s
decisions. miles northeast of San Diego, not more than enough electricity to power
For example, when asked whether far from the lower-California desert the operation 365 days a year [including
they consider the power consumed community of Palm Springs. battery backups for nighttime use and
by computer equipment important Startup Greenest Host offers Web accounting for cloudy days],” he said.
enough to constitute a significant hosting, Web site development and The data center, network and servers
environmental issue, 61 percent of all design, outsourced e-commerce strat- were designed from the ground up to
respondents said yes. In contrast, when egy and development, and full-service use the lowest amount of energy pos-
asked to what extent environmental outsourced Internet marketing strategy. sible and implementing the latest green
impact is part of their company’s And the company is growing, with a design techniques. And Greenest Host’s
technology RFP (request for proposal) second, larger data center slated to new data center will benefit from a
or evaluation process, 74 percent of open soon in Carlsbad, Calif. power-conserving building design.
respondents said it was slightly impor- So, how is Greenest Host different “Our data center operations group
tant or not important at all. from the many Web hosts that are is designing a green roof for the data
Such responses indicate that IT touting their green capabilities? center [in Carlsbad],” Corrales said.
pros recognize the environmental According to Mike Corrales, “The new green roof will reduce cool-
impact of IT activities but that the Greenest Host’s founder and president, ing and heating requirements by up to
green bottom line for businesses is other Web hosts run their data centers 50 percent. The center is also becom-
just that—the bottom line. Most busi- with traditional, grid-tied electricity ing LEED-certified with the U.S. Green
nesses aren’t about to spend more and server configurations and then Building Council.”
money than they have to for eco- “offset their pollution sins by purchas- Corrales said he sees only growth
friendly IT measures. They will do ing renewable energy credits.” ahead for his business. “In the direc-
so only if the payback is there—if the Greenest Host, in contrast, is 100 tion we’re headed in 2008, we will
green of dollar savings matches the percent solar-powered, Corrales said. have ability to scale computing abili-
green of environmental benefit. ´ “[Using 120 solar panels only], we ty, power generation and redundancy
generate just over 50 megawatt-hours on an order of magnitude to meet
Stan Gibson is a Boston technology of electricity per year.” This translates growing consumer demand for com-
writer and principal of Stan Gibson to about 144 kilowatt-hours per day. petitively priced green alternatives,”
Communications. He can be reached Greenest Host is also relying on he said. —Chris Preimesberger
at stan@stangibsoncomm.com.
