1. What is the source of power for the data center. What Is your power provider using to generate the power you buy from them: coal, diesel, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, or renewable energy?
2. What is the maximum heat load (watts per sq. ft.) that your HVAC/CRAC systems can accommodate without upgrades?
3. If upgrades are needed, in order to increase server density, and thus the amount of heat generated, how much will that cost?
4. Given the growth of your company’s IT needs
   • How many servers will you need to buy in the next 3 years (assume you are using virtualization to enable maximum use of the hardware)
   • What will be the TCO for that new hardware (include power, additional networking gear, upgrades, staff costs etc?)
   • Will that outstrip your cooling or power capacity forcing upgrades there?

To date, datacenters have not been designed to be green. That has not been a priority and, in most locations simply impossible due to the power source. Retrofitting existing datacenters to be green, even where possible, is a very expensive undertaking as most of the IT infrastructure needs to be replaced. Even then it may not be efficient as the building itself may not have been engineered to hold the increased amount of weight required for extremely high density server clusters (where you are generating 300 to 1000W/sq. ft.)Before you get to that point you should be seriously considering outsourcing your ICT infrastructure to a commercial datacenter that is green and which can handle those extreme loads. By doing so you will save your company a lot of money. The ability to go high density (bigger more powerful servers capable of doing more than many small servers together) on the racks means fewer racks are required, and thus less cost and less equipment for you to manage. Less equipment, both on site and remote, means fewer staff required to manage and maintain it. No datacenter upgrades means a better bottom line for your company and you as the main IT person end up looking good to your company’s financial watchdogs.Phase 4 – Choosing the Right Datacenter PartnerNow that you have made the decision to outsource to a commercial datacenter you need to do your due diligence and choose the one that best meets your company’s needs. Here are some points to consider, can who you are considering give a positive answer to each point?Uninterrupted Power Supply

• Fully protected by UPS systems
• UPS circuits are not oversubscribed
• UPS and all critical systems backed up by generators
• Dual utility power feeds from separate hydro electric power substations

Network Connection:

• Dedicated connection rate
• Network growth capacity
• Tier 1 upstream connections
• Multiple Tier 1 backbone providers
• Multiple upstreams BGP4 managed (multi-homed)

Quality Hardware:It has been shown that low cost, poor quality hardware, or the use of hardware not designed for the intended application is a major cause of server failure. To avoid this, your solution should include:

• Hardware provided from a major trusted provider, such as IBM.
• Hardware designed to handle its intended application, such as a rack mount enterprise class server

This is particularly important if you are not colocating your own hardware but instead going for a sever capacity model where you rent servers from your datacenter provider.Environment:Datacenters have a high power to square foot consumption and as technology continues to advance this consumption rate is growing steadily. Many traditional data centers can’t keep up with the growing power demand and worse yet, many traditional data centers acquire their power from non clean energy sources including coal generators or nuclear plants. RackForce is ensuring that they are as environmentally responsible as possible. There are a lot of factors that contribute to a green datacenter, among those power source and power consumption are the two biggest.Most traditional datacenters get their power from either coal fired generating plants or nuclear plants, some from diesel generators. None of these are green or clean. Of all the readily available current power sources, sufficient to run a large commercial datacenter (20MW+), hydro-electric power is, by far, the greenest. It produces no CO2 or any other environmental contaminant. All of RackForce’s datacenters are powered by hydro-electric energy, from the Columbia River.Power consumption is the other area a data center can focus on to be as green and environmentally responsible. “The Green Grid Data Center Power Efficiency Metrics” created a set of standard metrics to evaluate data centers equally. One of these is PUE – Power Usage Effectiveness. Traditional data centers have a PUE ratio of 2-3 which means for every 3 watts of power brought in to the data center only 1 gets to the actual server. RackForce’s gigaCENTER has a PUE ratio of 1.38 which means only 0.38 of a watt (400% more efficient than traditional data centers) is used to power the infrastructure around the equipment. This incredible efficiency is realized through the advanced virtual technology and expertise RackForce employees across our data centers.

• Green power supply
• Actively planning and working towards carbon neutral or zero carbon status

Location:Datacenters are subject to the hazards native to the region they are located in. Extreme weather conditions, earthquakes, and floods have all caused data center failures in the past, for datacenters located in hazardous areas. Data stored in areas where these and similarly severe hazards exist is data that is at risk. Kelowna, BC Canada, where RackForce located its datacenters, is free from those risks. The region has been rated as one of the safest and best areas in North America in which to build a datacenter. If a company’s office suffers an outage their team can relocate to RackForce’s Disaster Recovery space. Because the region is a major tourist draw it has an international airport and abundant facilities on hand to accommodate BCRS (Business Continuity and Resiliency Services or Disaster Recovery) teams. gigaCENTER offers 20,000 sq. ft. of office space to assist BCRS teams to get their operations back up and running smoothly again.

• No risk of floods
• No adverse weather related risks
• No risk of earthquakes
• Isolated Power Grid
• Temperate climate

Physical Plant:

• Stable and abundant power supply
• Extensively scalable floor space
• Raised computer room flooring capable of supporting equipment loads
• Ability to provide customers with separate secured spaces (cages or suites)
• Support for diverse high power & cooling densities (300 watts per sq/ft)
• Security and fire suppression
• Work area/office space available for BCRM (Business Continuity Resource Management [Disaster Recovery])

Phase 5 – Choosing the right servicesBefore you commit to colocating your existing hardware with a datacenter you need to look at that hardware’s current life cycle and determine how soon on average it will need replacing. If it is all relatively new then proceed with colocating it. However if it is getting close to replacement time then you should speak to the datacenter about the possibilities of renting new greener equipment and save on capital expenditures. For example, here at RackForce if your equipment needs do not match what we currently stock by default we can work with you and IBM to get you the equipment you need, or its equivalent. Going down this path can open up a lot of possibilities for your company to supplement existing overworked IT staff with services provided by RackForce and/or IBM that will increase your efficiency, which in turn can only help the company balance sheet.ConclusionInvestigate all possibilities before deciding which path you’ll take. There are many factors that go into your decision and you need to consider them all if you want the end result to be greener hosting of your IT infrastructure. I hope this guide has been of some use to you in making those decisions.

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Here 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:

1. Each computer server produces 8 tons of CO2 per year
2. Each PC or laptop produces 4 tons of CO2 per year
3. Each printer or photocopier produces 10 tons of CO2 per year
4. 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}
5. 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 Projectshttp://www.wri.org/stories/2007/09/guidelines-quantifying-ghg-reductions-grid-connected-electricity-projectsThe Purchase of http://www.thegreenpowergroup.org/retail.cfm?loc=us

For more of Bill’s excellent work please visit his websites

• http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/
• http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com

RackForce is in the preliminary phase of getting a complete verifiable GHG baseline analysis done for our new datacenter, GigaCenter and working with various consultants to discover the ways that our customers will be able to monetize their GHG savings by relocating to us. As GigaCenter will be one of, if not the most, efficient carbon neutral data centers in the world, through the extensive use of virtualization of servers and network, cloud and grid computing, advanced cooling techniques enabling high power/sq.ft. loading, and other new technologies that contribute to a PUE of 1.38 compared to industry norms of 2.5 to 4. Customers locating with RackForce, especially large enterprise customers who relocate a large amount of ICT infrastructure from inefficient data centers (pretty nearly every data center out there private or commercial at this time) should be able to reap significant financial rewards for doing so. They will lower their costs (through outsourcing the infrastructure) and reap carbon credits they can then apply against other parts of their organization or sell on the open market.RackForce is now pre-selling colocation space in gigaCENTER so don’t miss out on this opportunity, phase 1 space is selling out fast. Contact Doug Alder (dalder at rackforce.com) Direct: 1-250-448-2203 or Jay Robinson (jrobinson at rackforce.com) 1-250-717-2340 ext 2303 on our gigaCENTER sales team now to get started.

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