Data centers improving efficiency for Better Building Challenge

The United States Department of Energy has recently extended its Better Building Challenge to public and private data centers across the country. Data center energy consumption can be reduced by a significant margin by applying best efficiency practices, according to the Department of Energy. Better Building Challenge participants will be required to improve the efficiency of a data center or several data centers, then share their findings with the IT community for the sake of driving innovation in energy efficiency. Several government agencies, along with a growing number of private and public data centers, have answered the call.

Enter Coresite and Digital Realty
Digital Realty and Coresite Realty Corp. are, so far, the only large data center providers to join the White House's Better Building Challenge. Computerworld notes that some critics have voiced concerns that the requirements for meeting the Better Building Challenge, reducing the energy consumption of a portfolio of facilities by 20 percent in 10 years, are too high for the average data center. Other organizations, including the National Resource Defense Council, argue it is conceivable for data centers to reduce their energy consumption by 40 percent in the same time period. Digital Realty, not daunted by the bold energy efficiency goal, has already begun to identify possible blocks in its U.S. portfolio to target for efficiency upgrades, according to Data Center Knowledge. The DOE requires that energy efficiency must come from the facilities side, so participants will not be able to count reductions in energy use from removing IT devices.

Big name brands join in
In addition to the two data center providers and 12 government agencies, participants in the Better Building Challenge includes several national brands. eBay, Home Depot, Staples and Schneider Electric have all pledged to greatly reduce the energy consumption of their respective data centers. Commercial data centers have much to gain from participating in the project beyond gaining access to new cost-cutting energy efficient practices. IT teams are more concerned with sustainability than ever before, as evidenced in the popularity of efficiency solutions like remote console servers, and commercial participants in the Better Business Challenge are sure to be recognized for their efforts in the form of good press.

Perle's wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.