Green data center strategies flagging, survey says

The lack of industry standards is slowing green data center initiatives

Developments of the week in storage

Digital Realty Trust, a data center provider, recently surveyed data center operators on green initiatives within their organizations. The survey found that a lack of industry standards is slowing green data center initiatives. 

Of the companies surveyed, 51% have green strategies, compared with 55% in 2007. Eighty two percent of the respondents indicated that there are no clear industry standards for building green data centers. While 94%, a number that has increased since 2007, said there should be a standard on how to achieve efficient power use. Eighty three percent said a standard is needed to outline how to enhance heating and air-conditioning systems to use energy more efficiently.

With an absence of green standards for the data center, 60% of the companies are looking to LEED certification for general building standards. The work of the Green Grid was also cited as a resource for green initiatives.

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Digital Realty Trust, a data center provider, recently surveyed data center operators on green initiatives within their organizations. The survey found that a lack of industry standards is slowing green data center initiatives. 

Of the companies surveyed, 51% have green strategies, compared with 55% in 2007. Eighty two percent of the respondents indicated that there are no clear industry standards for building green data centers. While 94%, a number that has increased since 2007, said there should be a standard on how to achieve efficient power use. Eighty three percent said a standard is needed to outline how to enhance heating and air-conditioning systems to use energy more efficiently.

With an absence of green standards for the data center, 60% of the companies are looking to LEED certification for general building standards. The work of the Green Grid was also cited as a resource for green initiatives.

Of the 51% of companies with green strategies, 82% are taking an approach that looks at servers, other data center hardware, as well as facility design and data center operations.

Only 18% plan to include carbon credits in their green data center plans and instead focus on directly reducing their data center energy consumption.

The respondents to the survey were IT decision-makers at large corporations in North America with a revenue of at least $1 billion or a size of at least 5000+ employees.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.