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10

Green IT Case Studies

for Universities and a

Large Company

“Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts.”

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from the poem,
“Michael Angelo” (pt. I, II, l.54)

ptg
The case studies described in this chapter include “lessons learned” and
information on the evolution of best practices for building green data centers
and leveraging green IT. The case studies include universities (Bryant and
Columbia) and a large (61,000 SF) corporate data center.
The first case study is the well-publicized green data center project for
Bryant University (http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/070713/0277526.html). The
Bryant University project was with a scalable modular data center design. In
addition to the modular data center design used by Bryant, other innovative
data center designs are discussed (including Google’s “Data Center in a Box”
concept).
The Columbia University case study includes information on plans for a
green data center that can be applicable to almost any organization. In ana-
lyzing the opportunity at Columbia University for green IT, the IT team dis-
cussed many proposed solutions that range—in their words—from “bleeding
edge” to “common sense.” Many of the solutions involve the university’s
expanding requirement to support High-Performance Computing (HPC)
based on a centrally administered and shared server cluster of high-density
blade systems for space and power efficiency. Universities offer a rich environ-
ment for such innovations and best practices. Not only do they have the
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