Data center customers prefer savings over sustainability

Sustainability may not be the best marketing pitch for your data center.

By Max Burkhalter
February 18, 2015
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Big names in the tech industry like Google and Microsoft have long broadcasted their latest achievements in green data center design to the public, leading many to believe that sustainable operations were a means of giving their company's data centers a competitive edge. This may not be the case, however, according to the latest polls of IT decision-makers. While this news is by no means a negative for companies with green data centers, it may impact the way that these data centers market their services to potential customers. And understanding these trends will also provide insight the factors influencing the data center industry's direction regarding energy savings.

Going green as a sales point falling out of vogue
While positioning a data center as sustainable may have provided an advantage for businesses in the past, this strategy has grown less effective, according to Data Center Knowledge. Research led by Green House Data revealed that a vast majority of 170 IT pros surveyed don't recognize sustainability as a major deciding point when making a choice between potential data center providers. The benefit that a data center's green operations offer now are grouped as part of the company's cost-reduction efforts and sold to customers as another means of delivering cheaper services.

Still plenty of reasons to reduce energy savings
There are still plenty of reasons for companies with data centers to go green, despite the fact that sustainability does not serve as key leverage for attracting business. First and foremost, the cost savings associated with sustainable data center design are truly substantial. In a short Q&A with Consulting-Specifying Engineer, several engineers related the savings they saw through sustainable operations in their data facilities.

For example, Andrew Baxter, principal engineer at Austin-based agricultural firm Page, noted that sustainable data center design was expected to save his company $35 million over 10 years. Companies can even look to reduce expenses in current data centers by updating their hardware. Scanning the data center for holes in efficiency with an energy monitor is easy thanks to affordable serial-to-Ethernet gear. You and your IT team can start to fill in the gaps and limit energy consumption where they find it, helping your entire facility to run more efficiently.

Perle's serial to Ethernet converters connect serial based equipment across an Ethernet network. The Perle IOLAN range of Console Servers, Device Servers and Terminal Servers feature built-in support for IPv6 along with a broad range of authentication methods and encryption technologies.

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