RackForce Blog
Archive for the 'Green Technology' Category
July 16th, 2009 [by Doug Alder]
Have a sneak peek video of the new datacenter here Check it out – more to come later
Tags: GigaCenter, RackForce, videoRelated posts
May 19th, 2009 [by Doug Alder]
In May of this year GigaCenter will open its doors for tours for prospective customers and customers can begin moving their equipment in June 2009. The design is scalable, we are starting with 30,000 sq. ft. and that will scale easily to over 100,000 sq. ft. This helps preserve the green footprint as less space needs HVAC. Internally the design is modular with up to 32 “GigaVaults” which are completely self-contained datacenter suites with it’s own power, cooling, networking etc. Each GigaVault can hold up to 12 x 42 u racks. Racks can be loaded to 1,000 watts per sq. ft. (note that with in-row cooling two 42u racks of in-row cooling would be required for 10 42u racks at 1000w/sq. ft.) As our president and chief visionary Tim Dufour recently said to us:
We have a design that provides the ultimate in flexibility, scalability, and maximum efficiency (Green). The beauty of the in-row cooling is that it allows us to build at virtually any density per vault. We have cold-aisle containment but can also provide hot-aisle containment to accommodate gas-based fire suppression systems. We have monster racks with additional rack space above that can be used for secure internal use (switches etc.) or customer purposes. Extra security can be provided with heavy diamond mesh over the top of the vault. Any version of an in rack ePDU can be provided as per customer requirements, 10 Gbps networking both LAN and WAN, low cost Internet, and the list goes on. I don’t think anyone on the planet can provide this kind of flexibility.
This is just the start folks, lots more to come 
stay tuned! If you are in need of colocation space and would like a tour of GigaCenter please contact myself Doug Alder (dalder at rackforce dot com ph: +1 (250)448-2203), Jay Robinson (jrobinson at rackforce dot com ph: +1 (250) 717-2340 ext:2303) or Paul Amodea (pamodea at rackforce dot com ph: +1 (604)535-5769 ) to set up an appointment. You had better hurry though as phase I is rapidly selling out and if you miss out on phase I then you’ll have to wait for phase II.
Related posts
October 14th, 2008 [by Doug Alder]
Bill St. Arnaud, the Chief Research Officer and one of the leading network architects for CANARIE1 wrote an excellent article on calculating your baseline GHG emission. Bold emphasis in the article is by me.
In order to get started in carbon trading it is necessary to first establish your baseline, that is what amount of CO2 is your project/organization responsible for generating right now, and how and where is it being generated. Once you know this information you can begin planning for ways to reduce those emissions and thus earn carbon credits, and the best way to do that is to move your ICT infrastructure to a green data center. RackForce’s current K3 datacenter is very green and it’s new datacenter GigaCenter will be one of the greenest on the planet.
Tags: Bill St. Arnaud, CANARIE, carbon offset, CO2, colocation, datacenter, GHG emissions, GigaCenter, Green, ICT, RackForce, VirtualizationHere a couple of excellent web sites explaining the detail process of how to calculate baseline GHG emission data for your network, ICT equipment or cyber-infrastructure. Once you have established a baseline for your current emissions your organization can then explore how to go about reducing its GHG emissions in order to meet carbon neutrality goals either set by your organization or government and ultimately earn carbon offset dollars from various carbon trading exchanges and/or trusts.
Virtualization of networks and computing through clouds or grids using SOA, as well as purchasing green power or moving infrastructure facilities to zero carbon data will be the most likely ways that organizations can reduce their GHG emissions in order to earn carbon offset dollars. But before proceeding with expensive and time consuming baseline GHG measurements, an organization should first determine whether they are ready to move to a world of virtual networks (including virtual routers and switches), virtual servers and cloud applications. If the organization’s “server huggers” are not prepared to let go of their physical computers, routers and switches, then there is no point in proceeding with a baseline assessment.
Networks, ICT and cyber-infrastructure are about the only places in an organization where significant GHG reductions are possible. In most organizations in the service sector (education, health, government, banking, finance, telecom, etc) ICT is, by and far, the largest producer of GHG emissions. Although same savings in GHG emission can be made through video conferencing, tele-commuting, tele-work centers and adjusting building heating and cooling systems, these savings will be marginal compared to the savings that are possible through virtualization and use of green power, or relocating ICT equipment to zero carbon data centers.
The dollar savings in energy costs and potential to earn carbon offset dollars can be the several of millions of dollars per year for a small to medium size organization (50 – 500 people).
You can quickly do your own back of the envelope calculation of the potential dollars (within an order of magnitude) for your organization:
- Each computer server produces 8 tons of CO2 per year
- Each PC or laptop produces 4 tons of CO2 per year
- Each printer or photocopier produces 10 tons of CO2 per year
- Each router produces 20 tons of CO2 per year [commercial datacenter strength routers not your home D-Link style routers, those are about the same as a PC as they use about the same amount of power -DA}
- Each Ethernet switch produces 5 tons of CO2 per year
Carbon offsets are currently trading between $7- $20 per ton, but next year Europe is projected to raise the carbon price from cap and trade to $100 per ton. It is expected that cost of carbon will soon rise to $400 to $1000 per ton over the next few years.
The above numbers assume that all the electrical power used by the organization is generated from coal. However, even if your electrical power is from cleaner sources such as nuclear, gas and oil, it is expected that cap and trade will be push up cost of power from these sources at a slight discount of that power produced from coal. True renewable power such as that produced by windmills, hydro and solar systems may trade at a premium to the market, especially within large urban centers.
Guidelines for Quantifying GHG Reductions from Grid-Connected Electricity Projects
http://www.wri.org/stories/2007/09/guidelines-quantifying-ghg-reductions-grid-connected-electricity-projectsThe Purchase of
http://www.thegreenpowergroup.org/retail.cfm?loc=us
