New tools, designs and services have emerged to help datacenter operators improve the energy efficiency of IT and facilties. This report examines the use of these technologies and techniques in real deployments.

1. Analyzing the Business
of Enterprise IT Innovation
CASE STUDIES IN HIGHLY
ENERGY-EFFICIENT DATACENTERS
Sustainable Technologies and Techniques Deployed in Facilities, 2009-2011
New tools, designs and services have emerged to help datacenter operators
improve the energy efficiency of IT and facilities. This report examines the use of
these technologies and techniques in real deployments.
DCT DATACENTER
TECHNOLOGIES
4 FINDINGS 5 IMPLICATIONS 1 BOTTOM LINE
• The financial crisis has reduced • Greater attention on datacenter • There are a number of standout
demand for new datacenter capex and opex will drive interest examples of datacenter owners
capacity, but research points to in energy-efficient technologies, and operators using the latest
strong growth ahead driven by and also in consolidating excess or technologies and strategies to
factors such as public and private inefficient capacity. Consolidation
improve facility energy efficiency.
cloud buildouts. PAGE 5 will also be made possible by
But on the whole, real-life
increased cloud use. PAGE 5
• Cloud computing, especially when deployments still lag supplier
allied with virtualization, has • While cost savings will remain the innovations. Factors such as fuel
benefits in terms of flexibility and primary driver for energy-efficiency price increases, carbon taxes and
the amount of IT work carried out projects, legislation and pressure other environmental regulations
per server. However, there can be from environmental groups will have
will need to accelerate in order
hidden deployment costs that must an increased impact. PAGE 6
to drive substantial adoption of
be factored into any cloud project.
• Large datacenter operators such the efficiency technology and
PAGE 16
as cloud service providers will help techniques.
• Free-air cooling is one of the most drive take-up of energy-efficient
accessible and commonly deployed technologies and practices. But they
energy-efficiency techniques. Even will also increasingly be scrutinized
limited use of outside air in place for their energy choices. PAGE 7
of mechanical chillers can bring
• Limited adoption of energy-efficient
significant energy savings.
datacenter technology means there
PAGE 19
is still plenty of opportunity for
• Even small datacenters at suppliers of DCIM software, power
companies not primarily focused management software, and efficient
on IT can make big gains in power and cooling gear. PAGE 9
energy efficiency. These gains can
• The divide between IT and facilities
come from relatively simple and
will increasingly blur as datacenter
inexpensive measures. PAGE 35
operators realize the importance of
a unified approach to management
to achieve efficiency. PAGE 11
OCTOBER 2011
THE 451 GROUP: DATACENTER TECHNOLOGIES
© 2011 THE 451 GROUP, LLC, TIER1 RESEARCH, LLC, AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

2. REPORT SNAPSHOT
TITLE Case Studies in Highly Energy-Efficient Datacenters
ANALYST Andrew Donoghue, Analyst, DCT and Eco-Efficient IT
RELEASE DATE October 2011
LENGTH 45 pages
ABOUT THIS REPORT
New tools, designs and services have emerged to help datacenter operators improve
the energy efficiency of IT and facilities. There are a number of standout examples
of datacenters using the latest technologies and strategies to improve facility energy
efficiency. But on the whole, real-life deployments still lag supplier innovations. Factors
such as fuel price increases, carbon taxes and other environmental regulations will need
to accelerate in order to drive substantial adoption of these efficiency technology and
techniques.
This report examines a cross-section of sustainable datacenter projects, which are broadly
representative of the range of eco-efficient technologies and strategies being employed
by datacenter owners and operators today. Some of these are becoming accepted practice;
others may be too niche to be applicable to the datacenter ‘mainstream.’ However, taken
as a whole, the projects analyzed in this report illustrate how the datacenter industry is
repositioning itself to consider the issues of energy use and sustainability on par with
uptime and availability.
THE 451 GROUP: DATACENTER TECHNOLOGIES
© 2011 THE 451 GROUP, LLC, TIER1 RESEARCH, LLC, AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 KEY FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
SECTION 2: THE ENERGY-EFFICIENT DATACENTER 5
2.1 DATACENTER DEMAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 ICONIC DATACENTER PROJECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 THE DATACENTER AND ENERGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 ENVIRONMENTAL SCRUTINY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5 IMPROVEMENTS IN DATACENTER ENERGY EFFICIENCY . . . . . . . . 7
2.6 MEASURING EFFICIENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.7 NEXT STEPS IN DATACENTER SUSTAINABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . 9
SECTION 3: CASE STUDIES 11
Figure 1: Overview of Energy-Efficiency Case Studies . . . . . . . . .12
Figure 2: Efficient Datacenter Technologies Deployed Across Facilities . . . .13
3.1 ENERGY-EFFICIENT IT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Figure 3: Adoption of Eco-Efficient Datacenter Technologies – IT . . . . .14
Energy-Efficient IT Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
3.1.1 US House of Representatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
3.1.2 AOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Figure 4: Changes in AOL’s IT and Datacenter Design Priorities . . . . . .17
3.2 ENERGY-EFFICIENT FACILITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Figure 5: Adoption of Eco-Efficient Datacenter Technologies – Facilities . . .19
Energy-Efficient Facilities Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
3.2.1 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Figure 6: Progression of Cooling Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
3.2.2 Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
3.3 ENERGY-EFFICIENT DESIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3.1 Modular Datacenters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Energy-Efficient Design Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
CASE STUDIES IN HIGHLY ENERGY-EFFICIENT DATACENTERS
© 2011 THE 451 GROUP, LLC, TIER1 RESEARCH, LLC, AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

4. 3.3.2 Capgemini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
3.3.3 HP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Figure 7: PUE Breakdown: HP Wynyard Facility vs. a Typical
‘Good Practice’ Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
3.4 INNOVATIVE EFFICIENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Innovative Efficiency Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
3.4.1 Helsingin Energia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
3.4.2 Tieto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
3.5 SMALL-SCALE DATACENTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Small-Scale Datacenter Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
3.5.1 CEMEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
Figure 8: CEMEX Energy-Efficiency Projects . . . . . . . . . . . .37
3.5.2 University of Hertfordshire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
Figure 9: University of Hertfordshire Datacenter Project Results . . . . . .40
Figure 10: Projected CO2 Reductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
SECTION 4: SUPPLIERS, CONSULTANTS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS 41
4.1 SUPPLIERS FEATURED IN CASE STUDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Figure 11: Suppliers Featured in Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . .41
4.2 OTHER SUPPLIERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2.1 Third-Party Datacenter and Cloud Providers. . . . . . . . . . .42
4.2.2 IT and Facility Equipment Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
4.2.3 Efficiency Technology Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
4.2.4 Containerized Datacenter Providers. . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
REFERENCES: ENDNOTES 45
INDEX OF COMPANIES 46
THE 451 GROUP: DATACENTER TECHNOLOGIES
© 2011 THE 451 GROUP, LLC, TIER1 RESEARCH, LLC, AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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CASE STUDIES IN HIGHLY ENERGY-EFFICIENT DATACENTERS
© 2011 THE 451 GROUP, LLC, TIER1 RESEARCH, LLC, AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.