Data centers: responsible for the energy crisis?
Published:12-October-2007
By BR staff writer
Concerned end users throw up their hands in horror at the cost of IT to the environment, while posting their concerns on hosted blogs, or discussing them in virtual worlds, apparently unaware that it is the very nature of these interactions that is exacerbating the problem.
The running of expanding data centers is being linked to an emergent energy resource crisis.
IT is not per se the cause of the problem; it is simply acting as a facilitator that makes the problem worse. IT provides what the user demands, but currently, the user appears to be making two contrary demands - give me more power to play with (to provide me with simple, or simplistic, entertainments), but do so without additional energy costs.
We will ignore the figures. A simple search on the internet will provide all the evidence one needs that we are facing an energy/resource crisis. You could probably get the same information from walking down to your local library, and it would save energy - not yours, but the world's. Or should the argument be that the printed word 'costs' more than running a web server?
Complex doesn't even begin to describe it. We know the problem exists; the real question is who is responsible for providing the answer? We can blame the car manufacturers for building such desirable objects, or we can blame the airlines for giving us the opportunity to fly 6,000 miles to have meetings that could be carried out equally effectively using the telephone.
It is not a simple problem, and there are no simple answers. Yet surely, the starting point has to be to examine the real reasons why we have reached the position that we have. There are two major ways we can reduce the energy costs within data centers. We can create 'better' technology that does the same for less (power), or we can reduce the demands on the data center, (or perhaps do both). Either way, we have to recognize that the end user is the driver behind the move to higher efficiency, either by reducing demands or working with those organizations that are showing their 'green' credentials.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
