Gartner: Ein grünes Rechenzentrum bedeutet mehr als nur Energiesparen

Laut dem IT-Marktforschungs- und Beratungsunternehmen Gartner werden die Aspekte Stromverbrauch und Kühlung die Entwicklung von Rechenzentren hin zu intelligenten „lebenden Organismen“ vorantreiben. Unternehmen müssen ihre Energiebilanz weiter verbessern und dadurch „grüner“ werden.

„Wenn wir uns zum Ziel stecken, Rechenzentren „grüner zu machen“, dann ist die Energieeffizienz nur der Anfang, aber für sich allein nicht ausreichend,“ sagt Rakesh Kumar, Vice President bei Gartner. „Das Stichwort “Grün“ verlangt einen durchgehenden, ganzheitlichen Blick auf das Rechenzentrum, einschließlich des Gebäudes, der Energieeffizienz, Abfallentsorgung, Vermögens- und Ressourcenverwaltung, Energiequellen, des technischen Aufbaus, der Betreuung der Kunden und des operativen Geschäftes.“

in Englisch:

Egham, UK, 20 October 2008 — Power and cooling will drive the evolution of data centres into becoming conceptual models of intelligent “living organisms” as organisations need to improve energy efficiency and become ‘greener’, according to Gartner, Inc. 

“If ‘greening’ the data centre is the goal, power efficiency is the starting point but not sufficient on its own,” said Rakesh Kumar, vice president at Gartner.  “’Green’ requires an end-to-end, integrated view of the data centre, including the building, energy efficiency, waste management, asset management, capacity management, technology architecture, support services, energy sources and operations.”

Legacy data centres, constructed in the last decade are - in relative terms and particularly when addressing ‘green’ - functionally obsolete.  New, high-density, power-hungry data-centre equipment warrants more advanced power and cooling capabilities.  If they are not fully aware of the problem, data centre managers run the risk of doubling their energy costs between 2005 and 2011.  If we assume that data centre energy costs continue to double every five years, they will have increased 1,600 per cent between 2005 and 2025.

“Data centre managers need to think differently about their data centres.  Tomorrow’s data centre is moving from being static to becoming a living organism, where modelling and measuring tools will become one of the major elements of its management,” said Mr Kumar. “It will be dynamic and address a variety of technical, financial and environmental demands, and modular to respond quickly to demands for floor space.  In addition, it will need to have some degree of flexibility, to run workloads where energy is cheapest and above all be highly-available, with 99.999 per cent availability.”

Achieving an optimised, reliable and efficient data centre environment requires a holistic and integrated approach, which can be broken down into six stages:

1)       Pick the location according to a strategic facility strategy.  High-bay, warehouse-type buildings provide more efficient rack layout and airflow