With the growing expenses of power and an increased uncertainty in power accessibility, energy conversion today is a major issue for data centers. With the increase in computing power demand to satisfy crucial mission application as well as the advent of virtualization created drastic impacts on server density, making the requirement for an efficient energy management plan even more essential today.

1. Need to develop Green Datacenters
With the growing expenses of power and an increased uncertainty in power accessibility, energy conversion
today is a major issue for data centers. With the increase in computing power demand to satisfy crucial
mission application as well as the advent of virtualization created drastic impacts on server density, making
the requirement for an efficient energy management plan even more essential today. When there is an in-
depth knowledge of energy consumption attained through real-time monitoring within the data center,
administrators feel safer of being able to make improved and energy conscious decisions. All these facts, had
led to the need for Green Datacenters today.
Several companies hosting digital marketplaces and social networks present at the Green Grid Forum 2012
shared their initiatives for establishing green datacenters. The datacenters today consume more than 2
percent of the total electricity. It has been estimated that almost half of US’s electricity is generated by
burning coal. The increasing datacenter energy usage will contribute to an ever increasing percentage of
greenhouse has emissions unless we are able to decouple the expansion of data storage and processing from
fossil fuel pollution.
Leading information security brands today have come up with a phased methodology to offer Green
Datacenter solutions that are cost efficient in nature. This apart, they offer sustainability to business
operations and guarantees a healthy bottom-line for an organization. The phases that are put to use are:-
Assessment Phase
This phase helps in setting up baseline of energy usage and carbon footprint of the present environment
using an assessment framework which is also utilized to audit the present environment. This process is
followed by Gap analysis and Feasibility study for identifying transformational initiatives, assess expense
structure and conduct impact analysis.
Planning and Design Phase
This phase assists in setting up a detailed route map for certain Green IT initiatives like DC optimization,
procurement, financial, recycling and resource planning.
Implementation Phase
This phase works towards selecting and implementing certain technologies datacenter transformation
initiatives such as datacenter consolidation, virtualization, power and cooling management and IT
infrastructure management. This phase also helps an organization to attain LEED certificate.
The amount of data the world processes and stores will go on expanding fast. EMC, an esteemed information
infrastructure solutions enterprise predicts that the amount of global data will expand to approximately 35
zettabytes by 2020. If there is no focus given on datacenter efficiency and renewable power usage, then the
climatic impact of datacenters will also expand exponentially. To aid this situation, eminent IT solution
providers are offering Green Datacenters methods to their clients and end users.
Related links: Datacenter virtualization, Managed network services