The first step in creating an effective data center governance model is to understand why it is necessary. While this seems like common sense, many organizations still need to take the time to consider why they need a governance model within their data centers. In many cases, there needs to be a standard or framework for governing data centers.
Rather than working from scratch, it is essential to use a model that has already proven effective in other organizations. When choosing such a framework, it is crucial to consider how your organization’s culture compares with that of other organizations using the same framework—this will help you avoid unnecessary conflict later on down the line.
Data centers are notoriously bad for being environmentally unfriendly. However, that is changing as the demand for greener data centers increases. Data center governance is one of the most effective ways to reduce the environmental impact of a data center. Data center governance strives to minimize the waste produced by data centers and ensures that a data center’s resources are used as efficiently as possible.
The Data Center Governance should be in charge of overseeing the improvement of environmental practices.
The Data Center Governance is responsible for setting up goals and measures and then measuring the company’s progress against those goals. It is a critical task because it requires that all departments work together towards a common goal: reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. It will allow the company to do its part in helping with worldwide climate change issues.
The team should be multidisciplinary and include members from different parts of an organization, such as IT, facilities management, energy use, security, and environmental issues such as recycling. Each member brings different perspectives to the table and will have varying ideas on how to achieve efficiency or security. Having one team oversee these efforts ensures that all parties are communicating and helping each other to make sure they meet their goals.
Environmental performance may be assessed in two ways:
- through comparing actual environmental performance with the environmental performance goals established for various environmental indicators; and
- Through the comparison of realized environmental results with those estimated by using computer models.
Such models may be used to estimate future results if specific actions are taken to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption, or otherwise improve environmental performance.
Governments should develop policies to promote green data centers.
Last year, the world’s total energy consumption was 97.2 exajoules. Green data centers, which use high-efficiency power supplies and cooling systems, effectively reduce the energy demand of data centers. More data centers will be needed to support the increasing number of personal devices connected to the Internet. However, it is estimated that half of the world’s data centers must be optimized for low-power servers and use power-inefficient products.
To increase public awareness about green data centers, governments should develop policies to promote their development and use. The policies should require or encourage federal agencies to adopt green designs and build new data centers using green equipment.
Additionally, they should require federal agencies to implement energy-efficiency measures such as aggressive server consolidation to reduce total energy use. Furthermore, they should promote consumer education programs on green data centers through public service announcements and media activities.
Read also: Indonesia will be a Global Leader in Green Data Center
They should require data center providers to make their facilities more energy efficient and allow them only in data center parks powered by renewable energy. Governments need to ensure that the facilities they build will be environmentally friendly.
Another reason to develop these policies is that many countries are trying to reduce their carbon footprint and become greener. With the rapid growth of cloud computing, we must develop strategies that can help reduce energy usage and carbon emissions from this industry.
Data centers should be more environmentally friendly.
Data center managers need to be aware of the environment and what their facilities are doing to it. Most data center managers focus on increasing server efficiency and ensuring that their organization’s servers are always running. However, these managers need to consider their data center’s overall environmental impact, which can be highly damaging even if servers work at 100% efficiency.
Data centers affect the environment in three ways: heat generation, greenhouse gases (GHG), and power management.
There are many ways companies can go green when it comes to their data centers, but some changes may take a lot more time than others. The best way to start is by looking at the resources you already have and making small changes that will add up over time.
For example:
- Purchase green power with your utility provider
- Upgrade your cooling systems with outside air economization or water chillers
- Use renewable energy sources for backup power
The small changes you make today will help you reach your environmental goals by reducing your carbon footprint and lowering expenses for your datacenter.
Conclusion
Data centers are incredibly wasteful. They have massive power needs, use enormous amounts of water, generate waste heat and carbon dioxide, and they’re often located in areas where they can cause environmental damage. As more and more of the world’s population moves online—and inevitably generates more data center traffic—the need for more data centers will grow.
To counteract these problems, data center owners should make their data centers as environmentally friendly as possible. It includes minimizing power usage, reducing the water used by cooling systems, using renewable energy sources instead of coal or natural gas, and locating them in places where they won’t hurt the environment.
Data centers are becoming more environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of power they use and reducing their carbon footprint. They do this through multiple methods.
- using renewable energy sources like solar or wind power;
- using intelligent power distribution units (IPDUs) and virtual IPDUs within the data center itself; or
- Using variable speed drives (VSDs) on equipment like fans and cooling systems adjust automatically based on need instead of running at maximum all the time.
Data center governance policies and procedures can implement and manage each of these methods.