Tri-Paragon Data Center Blogs

Reducing your carbon footprint

Written by Roy Bartlett | Apr 25, 2022 12:00:00 PM

Interested in reducing your data centre carbon footprint?

Data centers have come under intense scrutiny from environmental groups because of their significant contribution to carbon emissions. However, there are multiple strategies and tactics that organizations can adopt to reduce their energy consumption. Currently, data centers consume up to 3 percent of all global electricity production while producing 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Inside the data center, network operators can adopt multiple strategies and tactics to reduce energy consumption.

 

 

Begin with an inventory of all IT assets to assess and understand current power usage patterns; find out what the power costs per transaction and transactions per kWh are. The goal is to identify inefficiencies in existing power and cooling patterns, and the areas that are most susceptible to creating a positive impact in reducing costs and power usage. Once established, prioritize what systems need to be upgraded, reconfigured, or removed. Embrace non-disruptive power-management tools to perform trend analyses. Datacenter infrastructure management (DCIM) tools can assist companies in making their data centers energy efficient.

Look at what Sunbird's Award-Winning DCIM Solution Can Do for You

The first step to reducing your data center carbon footprint is to collect data on how much power you are using. This data is critical for better decision-making and to see the impact of efficiency initiatives in your data center.

Intelligent rack PDUs are a must-have for determining power usage and available capacity at the rack. Outlet metered PDU’s provide data at the device level so you can identify ghost servers that are wasting space and energy, see power hogs that can be replaced or virtualized, allocate costs to users/customers, and compare IT efficiencies.

Switched PDUs with outlet control allow you to remotely power on and power off individual outlets when equipment is not in use to save energy, just like turning your lights off when you leave your house. Metering and monitoring every connection point in your power circuits enables you to improve capacity planning, optimize management of existing resources, and report on efficiency metrics. Other power meter options include bus drops and busway end feeds, remote power panels, floor PDUs, UPSs, and building meters.

Let’s face facts. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Why wait for forced legislation to act? Implement our DCIM as a Service (DCIMaaS) based on the world’s leading Sunbird DCIM Software now to start your journey to a greener environment.

Follow our weekly blogs for additional Tips to reduce power consumption (your carbon footprint) and increase the sustainability of your data centre.

Contact Tri-Paragon Inc. for additional details. We can be reached at 416 865-3392 or by email at info@triparagon.com