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The Greening of IT
220 How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment

replace 8 to 80 servers. The simplicity in running fewer physical
servers is a no-brainer. The System z10™, IBM’s new generation of
energy-efficient, large centralized servers can replace approximately
1,800 distributed servers. The energy efficiency and space-savings
enable the data center to add capacity within the four walls.
11. Do not wait for the 11 th hour. Start a sustainable data center
now. The biggest savings of all for going green is to create a culture
and infrastructure that exploits technology for creating a sustainable
data center. With green concepts and projects, a data center can
grow in capability / capacity while continuing to use the same or
less space and energy. Conducting or having a third party conduct
an energy audit can benchmark where you are and identify projects
with ROIs that can be prioritized to give cascading green returns.
For every watt you save in IT equipment, you reduce the infrastruc-
ture (UPS, cooling, and so on) load and generate savings for future
projects. Conserving energy in the data center allows the dollars to
be used for adding more value to the business. Use energy like a pre-
cious commodity. Turn it up (and on) when needed and throttle
ptg
back (turn off) when not needed. Create a culture and data center
that is intrinsically green.

Following are some additional green ideas for sprucing up your data
center. Some you may have already done. Others can yield small to mas-
sive energy savings. All of them I have observed in various data centers
in the past 18 months:

✓ Know the new (revised as of 2008) ranges of the temperature and
humidity specs of ASHRAE. Stop running too hot or cold. Yes, you
can run your data center between 60°F and 80°F. Let the hot aisles
be hot.
✓ Place equipment so that it is in hot and cold aisles with two floor-tiles
width. Stop mixing hot and cold air whereever possible.
✓ This includes keeping openings in the server ranks and the servers to a
minimum. Inspect each cabinet to make sure that for all empty slot posi-
tions where no equipment is installed, filler strips or blanking plates are
installed to eliminate turbulence inside the cabinet (allowing proper
cooling of the installed hardware). In some cases, where a cabinet is by
itself, devices such as “snorkels” might be used to direct either cold air
into or hot air out of the cabinet as a tactic to provide the most-efficient