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178 P a r t I V : a r t I V : C a s e S t u d i e sa s e S t u d i e s
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Professional Services
The Dell Datacenter Environmental Assessment (DCEA) helps customers determine
the power consumption and cooling requirements for current and future deployments. This
helps Dell’s customers understand how to cool their datacenter as cost-effectively as possible.
The company also offers its Datacenter Capacity Planner, which helps businesses find
the right size for their rack deployments and utilize the latest technology and density
advancements.
Partnerships
Dell also utilizes partnerships with other companies to improve datacenter efficiencies.
The company uses its Dell Power and Thermal Lab in Austin, Texas to study and address
cooling issues that arise as datacenter densities increase.
The lab, which is 875 square feet, allows engineers to simulate the following:

• Various heating loads
• Model customer server loads
• Varying cooling capacities
The facility even has a smoke generator that can be used to study recirculating air patterns.
Dell is also working with various industry bodies to develop standards to help quantify
the impact of energy efficiency of the datacenter. In the absence of standards, it’s hard to
quantify the impact of technology decisions.

Green Initiatives
Dell’s efforts to be green are evident through a number of its business activities. From
ecologically conscious products to the way it manages its supply chain, Dell focuses on
environmental responsibility at every level of its organization. Let’s take a closer look at
the sorts of things Dell does to make as little of an environmental impact as it can.

Packaging
When we think of environmental responsibility, we immediately think about reduced toxins
in the devices or we think of recycling programs. Although these are important issues that
must be tended to, there are other places where environmental impact needs to be
considered. An area we may not think of is packaging.

NOTE Packaging waste accounts for more than 30 percent of U.S. solid waste.
Dell has made efforts to reduce the sheer amount of packaging it uses to ship its
products. The company starts by making its products more robust so that less packing
material is needed to protect them. For organizations buying large numbers of computers,
Dell offers multipacks. This allows shipments to be consolidated into smaller units.
This effort doesn’t just result in a reduced impact on landfills. Like so many green
issues, there is a savings to your bottom line. If you buy one of Dell’s multipacks, you save
on shipping costs and then on the cost to recycle that packaging.

NOTE Because of Dell’s efforts to reduce packaging costs in 2005, the amount of plastic foam and
wood materials was reduced by 5258 tons. Dell’s goal was 5000 tons.