Green 
Alliance Technology Solutions offers IT Assessment Services that can help you optimize your data center environment and core IT infrastructure with the goal of creating an efficient green data center.
Green
Green is nothing new to most of us. It’s Server Consolidation & Virtualization with a new name, “Green”, that happens to be a benefit to our planet and a financial savings for your IT budget.
To optimize the use of IT equipment and reduce the power burden on the data center, organizations need to use virtualization as the core enabler. Virtualization forms the basis for broader efficiency realization across all functional aspects of IT such as data mobility, backup and recovery, business continuity, disaster recovery, and management. Virtualization enables and complements important IT initiatives such as data migration, consolidation, and automation. With virtualization at the heart of IT infrastructure, organizations build data centers that are financially efficient and environmentally safer.
Beyond Green:
Achieving Efficient and Sustainable IT
Efficient IT Delivers Green
- IT and data center infrastructure suppliers collaborating with corporate customers
- The design, deployment, and operation of best-practices computing environments
- Employing technology to gain efficiency and cost savings while meeting business objectives
- Minimizing harmful environmental impacts
In order to build efficient green data centers, organizations need to take a holistic view of their data center operations including people, process, and infrastructure. Organizations need a staff with business process and technical expertise. Definition, creation, and implementation of operational processes in IT projects are fundamental for data center efficiency. Awareness, understanding, and effort in optimizing all aspects of data center infrastructure are required in building a fully functional efficient green data center; this includes the facility, the data center support infrastructure such as electricity and cooling equipment, and the IT infrastructure including applications, servers, networks, and storage.
The Digital Universe is Rapidly Expanding
The amount of Digital Information Created and Replicated Each Year has grown Ten-fold in five years!
Information is estimated to be growing at about 55 percent. To handle this massive influx of information, organizations are continuously investing in IT resources, both capital as well as human; the net result is that organizations are falling behind the curve and struggling to keep up with IT requirements from the business. This forces organizations to implement tactical strategies rather than building and maintaining broader, visionary strategies for their data centers. The “block and tackle” approach is leading to large-scale inefficiencies across data centers, resulting in financial loss for businesses as well as environmental loss for the earth’s ecosystem.
Data Center Energy Use is Doubling
Comparison of Projected Electricity Use, 2007 to 2011
- IT energy use has doubled since 2000 and will likely double again by 2011
- Energy operating costs will soon exceed the cost of purchase for servers
- Existing conservation technologies can reduce consumption to 2002 levels
The EPA expects energy costs for data center environments to double every five years. With energy costs comprising 30 – 40% of your IT operating budget, our Technology Services are available to help you optimize efficiency.
With electricity becoming the second largest operational expense in the data center and the risk of data centers running out of required total power for operations, organizations need to pay close attention to power and cooling infrastructure and power consumption of resources. Through formal assessments, organizations need to understand existing data center power and cooling designs, power consumption and cooling requirements of equipment, and resources, utilization of equipment to identify areas of opportunity for optimization.
IT Assets are Poorly Used
Typical IT Utilization Rates
- Servers: 5–15%
- Direct-attach storage: 20–40%
Typical Data Utilization Rates
- As much as 70% of file data is never accessed
The widening gap between physical and operational assets of a data center and the lack of their optimal use are resulting in higher costs for everything including hardware acquisition and maintenance, energy consumption, data center real estate, infrastructure management, and human resources, along with environmental costs. Organizations have an opportunity to improve their data center operations and reduce cost and environmental impact by better understanding all aspects of an operational data center. A complete understanding of data center operations includes knowledge of power supply and cooling systems and infrastructures, equipment placement plans, IT infrastructure planning and design processes, and finally, the use and operation of IT.