If you go to any college campus and mention the words “LEED Certification” to Computer Science and Engineering students, they will be able to give you a detailed explanation of the importance of green technology on both physical and IT-based infrastructures. The green movement is not a fad that is going to fade out in a few years; it is here to stay, and server virtualization can play a huge part in the reduction of energy use and costs.“LEED” stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and is essential to a government designed point system to calculate a building’s environmental footprint ranking, from Certified, to Silver, to Gold, to Platinum.
The University of Iowa was recently awarded a Platinum ranking, the highest LEED Certification that can be offered, for their Information Technology Facility. “Data centers are among the most energy-intensive facilities you’ll find on a campus,” University of Iowa President Sally Mason bragged. “To build ours to LEED Platinum standards speaks volumes about the University’s commitment to energy conservation and sustainability.”
Granted, the University of Iowa spent over 30 million dollars to achieve such a high LEED certification, but doing something as simple as utilizing more energy efficient virtual servers can make a huge difference in your energy costs.
Take a moment to imagine a room filled with 30 hot, inefficient physical servers that are limited to using around 20% of their potential space; imagine the heating and cooling costs to keep all of those servers at an average running temperature of 68 degrees. Now, imagine a room with 8 virtual servers that are physically the same size handling the same workload. This is a perfect example of how energy efficient virtual servers are quite literally the future of IT and the green movement.
In IBM’s “Framework for Growth and Efficiency” article, the importance of server virtualization is mapped out very clearly: “Not only does [virtualization] improve the usage of existing resources, save storage space, and increase energy efficiency, but it also makes systems more responsive, simpler to manage and easier to back up, with less downtime and increased overall efficiency.”
To have a system that is both energy efficient and easier to manage is a dream that many CIO’s share. The benefits of such a system in terms of cost savings are colossal.
Virtualization and other efficient technologies are the future, and we are a company focused on tomorrow as much as we are focused on today.
Sources
IBM Green Perspectives – http://www-304.ibm.com/businesscenter/cpe/html0/195802.html
LEED Certification Explanation – http://blueberrypdx.com/leed-certification.htm
Iowa University LEED Platinum Ranking – http://its.uiowa.edu/news/platinum-record-information-technology-facility-ui%E2%80%99s-first-building-top-leed-certification
