Green Data Centers
One of the main concerns of cloud
data-centers is the consumption of huge
amount of electrical energy which results in emission of carbon dioxide. Almost, fifty
percent of the electrical energy consumption is for cooling the devices rather
than using it for computing resources. The generation of heat and the cooling
leaves a huge amount of foot prints of carbon on the atmosphere, which is a
serious social issue - global warming. Gartner 2007 says that about 2%
of the global carbon dioxide emissions are done by Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) industry. This necessitates the construction of
zero emission data centers - Green Data Centers.
Individually,
our everyday browsing has a relatively minuscule impact. Google, in response to
claims that each search on its site generated as much CO2 as boiling half
the water for a cup of coffee (7g), calculated the true figure was much
lower, at 0.2g. Watching a YouTube video of cats was
higher – 1g for every 10 minutes of viewing – while using Gmail for a year
produced about 1.2kg a user.
Not to be outdone, Facebook put a figure on its average user’s annual
footprint – 269g of CO2, roughly equivalent to the carbon
footprint of a cup of coffee.
Google
and Amazon are among the companies using an obsolete tool to calculate their
data center emissions from
the electricity they
purchase from the power grid, according to Lux Research.The research firm has
developed a new analytical tool that finds data centers underestimate coal usage by
30 percent or more, and thus have much higher emissions than they report.
Google misses the mark in four out of its seven
data centers. Google uses eGRID to estimate its electricity emissions, but four
of Google’s seven major US data centers rely more on coal than the data
reported by eGRID implies. As a result, Google’s emissions are likely larger
than they estimated by 42,000 MT CO2e per year, Lux Research says.
Amazon estimates
are off in more than 20 centers. Amazon is less transparent about how it
calculates its emissions, but its 23 Virginia-based cloud services data centers
use about 43 percent electricity from coal — not 35 percent as estimated using
eGRID. This difference amounts to 85,000 MT CO2e per year more.
Apple
gets the worst ratings in a Greenpeace report that claims cloud computing
companies are perpetuating the use of fossil fuels.
The
report, How Dirty is Your Data?,
compares energy choices made by Apple, Google, Facebook, HP, IBM, Microsoft,
Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon.com and Akamai – described by Greenpeace as ten of the
top “global cloud companies”.
Facebook,
Apple, Google, eBay, and Microsoft have
pledged to move their new data centers toward
all-green operations. At some point, others may be
forced to follow.
A modest 1 MW data center facility can easily consume
more than 4.4 million liters (1.2 million gallons) annually, according to
Emerson Network Power’s Jack Pouchet from, who also sits on the board of
directors of The Green Grid, a nonprofit that promotes IT resource efficiency. As cloud computing skyrockets and water scarcity
worsens in many places globally, data centers are increasingly competing for a
limited resource.
The Foundry Project in will recycle waste heat generated from an underground data center and then use it to warm the Northcoast Fish Farm, reported ZDnet.
India and Data Centers
Amazon Web Services (AWS) appears to be
planning to build at least one cloud data center in India in 2016, following
announcements by Microsoft and IBM.
Gartner Says Data Center
Infrastructure Market in India to Reach $2 Billion in 2016
References
4) http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3162823
