Page 43 -

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

installation of energy-efficient IT equipment and optimization of data center
cooling techniques.
Recent EPA reports stress that the U.S. data center industry is in the
midst of a major growth period stimulated by increasing demand for data
processing and storage. This demand is driven by several factors, including
the following:

■ Increase in electronic transactions in financial services, such as online
banking and electronic trading
■ Growth of Internet communication and entertainment use
■ Increase in online shopping and related transactions
■ Shift to electronic medical records for healthcare
■ Growth in global commerce and services
■ Adoption of satellite navigation and electronic shipment tracking in
transportation

Other important trends contributing to data center growth in the govern- ptg
ment sector include the following:

■ Use of the Internet to publish government information
■ Government regulations requiring digital records retention
■ Enhanced disaster recovery requirements
■ Emergency, health, and safety services
■ Information security and national security
■ Digital provision of government services (for example, e-filing of taxes
and U.S .Postal Service online tracking)
■ High-performance scientific computing

During the past five years, increasing demand for computer resources has
led to significant growth in the number of data center servers, along with an
estimated doubling in the energy used by these servers and the power and
cooling infrastructure that supports them. This increase in energy use has a
number of important implications:

■ Increased energy costs for business and government
■ Increased emissions, including greenhouse gases, from electricity generation