{"id":2299,"date":"2013-03-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otava.test\/investing-in-data-center-efficiencies-part-two\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:11:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:11:18","slug":"investing-in-data-center-efficiencies-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/investing-in-data-center-efficiencies-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in Data Center Efficiencies \u2013 Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second part of our Investing in Data Center Efficiencies<\/em> series, we will focus on two of the three levels of investments data centers can incorporate to become more energy efficient.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Changes<\/strong>
\nThe second level of investment is changing a data center\u2019s infrastructure. Data centers can monitor, maintain, and replace equipment and virtualize their infrastructure to a private cloud. This level requires more of a financial investment, but could pay for itself with energy cost savings.<\/p>\n

Hot\/Cold Aisle Containment<\/strong>
\nHot\/cold aisle containment refers to a physical barrier limiting the mixing of cold air and hot exhaust air. At Online Tech, all of our Michigan data centers are designed using hot\/cold aisle containment. At the end of the row of cabinets, a hidden plastic container directs all of the cold air into the center of the servers. This maximizes the use of the cold air to cool the equipment by lessening the amount of cold air escaping.\u00a0 This type of barrier could result in a 20% energy savings calculates Pacific Gas and Electric Company.<\/p>\n

Monitor & Maintain Equipment<\/strong>
\nBy monitoring and maintaining your existing equipment, you can reduce energy consumption. You should develop an ongoing maintenance program to evaluate if your data center\u2019s equipment is working properly or if you need to upgrade to more efficient equipment. In all of Online Tech\u2019s Michigan data centers<\/a>, we also use monitoring equipment. This equipment measures the temperature and humidity of our Michigan data centers and automatically makes adjustments.<\/p>\n

Upgrade to More Efficient Equipment<\/strong>
\nToday more energy efficient equipment is available. Although it might be costly to replace initially, over time energy savings will outweigh the capital costs.<\/p>\n

Incorporate More Efficient Air Conditioners<\/strong> By replacing your old air conditioners with more efficient air conditioners, you can take advantage of the 20 to 40 percent efficiency improvement.<\/p>\n

Upgrade to Digitally Controlled UPS<\/strong>
\nThis type of upgrade is much more gut wrenching and more expensive, but it can offer you a lot of savings, says Online Tech Co-CEO, Yan Ness. In 2011, Online Tech invested over $1 million dollars into their Mid-Michigan data center<\/a> to incorporate higher energy efficiencies and to achieve a fully redundant and audited IT infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Air conditioning units were upgraded to new units that are much more energy efficient. Also, the entire UPS infrastructure was replaced resulting in an additional 100KW and increasing energy efficiencies from 80% to 92.5%.<\/p>\n

These improvements resulted in Online Tech becoming Michigan\u2019s first data center to achieve the U.S. Environmental Protection ENERGY STAR Certification, putting Online Tech in the top 25 percent of facilities in the nation regarding energy performance.<\/p>\n

Move Infrastructure to Private Cloud<\/strong>
\nNess says that the biggest step Online Tech took toward becoming more energy efficient was to virtualize the company\u2019s infrastructure into a private cloud<\/a>.\u00a0 Online Tech had 30 to 40 internal servers and moved them into a private cloud.\u00a0 This easily lowered the amount of energy used to power 30+ servers, cool the servers as well as the space that housed them.<\/p>\n

Strategic Planning<\/strong>
\nThe third level of investment requires a company to plan more long-term and strategically.<\/p>\n

Select Cooler Geographical Regions<\/strong>
\nOne of InformationWeekly\u2019s top data center trends for 2013 is considering different geographical climates to help lower energy costs.\u00a0 Many data centers are now being built in cooler regions, like Michigan, to take advantage of the favorable, year round temperatures.\u00a0 Michigan\u2019s annual average temperature is 60 degrees for the high and 40 degrees for the low.\u00a0 These ideal temperatures allows Michigan data centers to use less energy for cooling compared to data centers in warmer climates.<\/p>\n

Outsource Your Data Center<\/strong>
\nWe know there are many businesses across the country that house their servers in closets and back rooms.\u00a0 What they do not realize is how much money they are truly spending for cooling and power costs.\u00a0 Many times colocation<\/a> makes much more economical sense.\u00a0 By using colocation, companies can quickly lower energy costs to power servers as well as keeping them cool.\u00a0 Another benefit is that companies can use the space that was currently housing server equipment into more productive, revenue-generating office space.<\/p>\n

Another scenario is when companies have multiple locations housing a server at each.\u00a0 The company is paying for power and cooling for each location.\u00a0 In addition, companies may want to update to more energy efficient equipment; however it would be very expensive to update equipment at all locations.<\/p>\n

This is when colocation may make more \u201cgreen\u201d sense \u2013 both financially and environmental.\u00a0 A company could centralize all of their servers into one data center.\u00a0 This would lower energy expenses over multiple locations.\u00a0 For simplicity sake, let\u2019s say that it costs $1,000\/mth for energy costs per location.\u00a0 A company has 10 locations, so that is $10,000\/mth or $120,000 per year in energy costs.<\/p>\n

Another \u201cgreen\u201d benefit to colocation is that data centers are overall more energy efficient.\u00a0 At Online Tech, we monitor and track our energy use and are constantly investing in ways to become more efficient.<\/p>\n

The Future of Data Centers \u2013 Using Michigan\u2019s Natural Resources<\/strong>
\nYan Ness says that the future for data centers is looking to natural resources to help generate power or conserve power.\u00a0 The state of Michigan is uniquely surrounded by 5 Great Lakes.\u00a0 Along with naturally cool temperatures, data centers could possibly use the cool water from the Great Lakes to help cool Michigan data centers.\u00a0 Another natural resource that offers great potential is wind.\u00a0 Michigan data centers could partner with wind farms across Michigan to generate power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second part of our Investing in Data Center Efficiencies series, we will focus on two of the three levels of investments data centers can incorporate to become more energy efficient. Infrastructure Changes The second level of investment is changing a data center\u2019s infrastructure. Data centers can monitor, maintain, and replace equipment and virtualize their infrastructure to a private cloud. This level requires more of a financial investment, but could pay for itself with energy cost savings. Hot\/Cold Aisle Containment Hot\/cold aisle containment refers to a physical barrier limiting the mixing of cold air and hot exhaust air. At Online Tech, all of our Michigan data centers are designed using hot\/cold aisle containment. At the end of the row of cabinets, a hidden plastic container directs all of the cold air into the center of the servers. This maximizes the use of the cold air to cool the equipment by lessening the amount of cold air escaping.\u00a0 This type of barrier could result in a 20% energy savings calculates Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Monitor & Maintain Equipment By monitoring and maintaining your existing equipment, you can reduce energy consumption. You should develop an ongoing maintenance program to evaluate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"other_category":[],"class_list":["post-2299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInvesting in Data Center Efficiencies \u2013 Part Two | OTAVA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Part two explores new ways to improve data center efficiency and reduce energy consumption.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/investing-in-data-center-efficiencies-part-two\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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