Strategies for Reducing Data Center Power Consumption

Overview

With concerns about power consumption and energy costs growing, efforts are underway to make data centers more "green" (energy efficient) and sustainable (reducing the use of non-renewable resources). In most data centers, servers draw more energy than storage devices; still, it has been estimated that all of the disk drives spinning around the world today generate emissions equivalent to 9 million cars annually.

Some analysts suggest that in 2008 half of all data centers won't have the power they need - and yet, many data centers waste as much as 60% of their energy on inefficient server and storage infrastructures. To encourage power reductions some utility companies and state energy auditors are offering rebate programs; consultants have developed new services to analyze power profiles and suggest improvement strategies.