The internet is commonly referred to as the “cloud,” our frontier, our railroad. With the cloud comes immense possibility for data storage. No longer do we have to park all the knowledge in our feeble minds, but rather we can store it in an interconnected web, accessible from nearly anywhere. Given that, there can only be one thing on your mind—how is this going to affect our carbon footprint? Well, let’s get to it.
The information and communications technologies sector (ICTs) accounts for roughly 2% of global carbon emissions. If it were a country, it would rank 5th in terms of total emissions. As a sector, it roughly compares with the airline sector, but is experiencing increased growth and is expected to reach 3% by 2020. Within the ICT sector, the energy requirements of personal computers (PCs) and monitors accounts for 40%, data centers account for 23%, and other telecommunications account for 24%.
Historically, information has been stored in PCs (well, originally it was stored in our minds, then we invented language, etc.). Ever since the emergence of the internet, information storage has gradually shifted to the “cloud.” Unfortunately, the “cloud” is not really a cloud at all. Instead, it is simply an enormous warehouse-esque building filled with powerful computers.
There are three primary types of data storage:
- On-premise (single tenant architecture)—your basic PC/
- Private cloud (virtualized single tenant architecture)—a dedicated server for an office.
- Multi-tenant cloud computing (à la Salesforce)—multiple customers share a server.
So how do we keep access to all this great data, while minimizing or ? Well, for starters, the government can issue regulations to set the framework of acceptable data center practices. However, naturally we don’t like people telling us what to do, so mandatory regulations are likely not coming anytime soon. Additionally, the cloud is a worldwide issue that cannot simply be tackled by one government. As a foot in the door approach, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing energy monitoring for all data centers, satisfying the old adage of: you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Corporations are realizing that there are significant benefits to attacking this energy problem head on. Data centers typically consume about 25% of a corporate office’s IT budget, providing significant incentive for companies to reduce their operating costs and increase profits. There are three main components to a data center:
- the facility,
- the equipment, and
- the workload—the amount of work a machine can produce in a specific period of time.
The first step towards efficiency is taking a page out of the permaculture playbook and stacking functions. All three of these components need to work together to achieve efficiency. Workloads should be maximized in appropriate places within the facility. Hot and cold air should be separated. University of California San Diego has a model in which they use refrigeration curtains to separate the air temperatures. Additionally, facilities can draw in outside air through an economizer to use as the cooling air. Technological advances are driving equipment upgrades, and accompanied with utility rebates, are hoping to achieve market transformation. Finally, a server virtualization can greatly maximize the energy use of a server by allowing multiple applications to share a server so redundant servers can be eliminated.
What are the best practices? It begins with aggressive management and a rethinking of energy. . Often data centers are located in large deserts, perfect for solar installations.
So what do you do as a user? Look for green web hosting services for your online business needs. But more importantly, remember the portion of the ICT sector that is not from data centers—your equipment. Turn off your computers, laptops, and other electrical devices when not in use. Unplugging devices is the most efficient mechanism for avoiding “phantom” energy use.
