Houston Business Journal – November 28, 2008

Energy-conscious business is all the rage. The reason is simple. Reduced energy costs improve business, and environmentally-efficient business decisions improve quality of life.

Companies are looking for every area of their business to become greener and more cost-efficient. Information technology is one of those areas. Computers, servers, network equipment and data storage consume large quantities of power. As computing performance becomes increasingly robust, power and cooling requirements increase. That’s why many data centers are aggressively pursuing emerging strategies in an effort to minimize power consumption.

Utility costs are the largest expense for data centers. Just a few years ago, computer hardware and equipment represented the lion’s share of data center costs. But much has changed. More than 50 percent of operating costs today are consumed by infrastructure power and cooling demands.

In fact, data centers now consume over $3 billion annually in utility costs. That’s because today’s data centers use high-density architectures that extend computing performance to unparalleled levels but place a far greater burden on power and cooling requirements.

A continuous increase in utility costs adds to the mix. This is particularly relevant in our market, considering the Houston metropolitan area tops the nation in per-building electrical power consumption, followed closely by Dallas-Fort Worth. These combined factors put energy efficiency and energy conservation at the top of every data center’s “must do” list.

The nation is also formulating regulatory tax credits for companies that exhibit and can validate energy savings. Although nationwide legislation has yet to be finalized and approved, we’re seeing a great deal of momentum.

Those in the market for hosted data solutions are asking managers if their facilities are prepared to deploy energy-efficient IT architectures that can help maximize future tax credits. The issue also extends to most in-house data centers as senior managers are asking IT directors if current infrastructures can meet future requirements.

To meet these challenges, most high-performance data centers ensure that the floor layout economizes and optimizes power distribution and consumption. This is accomplished by a “best practice, computational fluid dynamics” approach — hardware, sub-floor components and vents are strategically arranged. For example, large groups of dense servers that collectively emit tremendous heat are positioned far enough apart so heat discharges do not accumulate or create air flow disruptions or temperature fluctuations that could impact other systems and increase power/cooling costs.

To further reduce costs, forward-thinking data centers are considering innovative ways to minimize cooling demands by reducing the impact of external (primarily solar) heat.

In semitropical cities such as Houston, rooftop temperatures during daylight hours can exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat generated at the rooftop diffuses throughout the entire building, increasing the demand for internal cooling. To reduce this impact, several solutions have been developed, including misting, rooftop turf and reflective panels.

Rooftop misting systems spray water on a regular schedule to cool the surface and help reflect heat. They can be set to activate when the temperature reaches a certain level, or they can be timed to run at a near-constant level during peak seasons. The excess water is channeled back into a misting reservoir, ready for reuse as needed.

Nature has no better barrier against solar heat than natural foliage. That’s why rooftop turf is another solution that is taken very seriously. Once grass sod is laid out on a rooftop and irrigated, rooftop temperatures can drop more than 50 percent. Maintaining rooftop turf is surprisingly simple. Some varieties of grass such as Bermuda are extremely durable in warm climates and require little care. Irrigated water is recycled for future use, and the turf can be shaded, if necessary, by using canvas awnings that also help deflect heat.

Reflective coatings have also shown great promise. Thin, easy to install and highly effective, reflective panels and coatings can both absorb and deflect solar energy, channeling it away from the rooftop surface. Panel sheets are also easy to manufacture; some reflective panels can even be fabricated using conventional laser printing technology.

These changes are exciting. Traditional data center operations are gradually giving way to greener, cleaner, more efficient methodologies. Adapting to these new models requires innovation, enthusiasm and a new approach to best practices. It also requires the leadership of high-performance data centers that support continual optimization of business performance and infrastructure costs. Ultimately this adaptation will result in lower costs, more efficient use of energy and a reduced impact on the environment. It’s a change for the better that everyone should embrace.