By Darren Bonawitz

It’s not always easy to admit when you don’t know something or that you need help, but as this article from the WHIR shows, setting ego aside can pay huge dividends. Data center managers either need to acquire knowledge or seek those who possess it regarding greening their IT operations. The cost of not doing so is simply too high. A reputable and qualified consultant can yield savings that offset the costs of obtaining their expertise. Keep in mind, the return on the investment increases month after month as savings are continually realized. At 1102 GRAND, I’ll admit we don’t utilize a lot of consultants because Todd, our director of operations, enjoys staying on top of trends and testing new products or solutions. He says learning and researching best practices and reading up on new or emerging technologies is half of the fun of his job. If that sounds like you, then maybe a consultant is not necessary. I guess my point is, the key is having a strategy and successfully implementing it consistently.

For example, just a few weeks ago Todd was able to apply a combination of things he learned at a conference, networking with other data center professionals and researching topics online to improve the under floor static pressure in raised floor data centers. It took him a couple of days to dial everything in (and some time to research, of course), but his answer was being able to shut off CRAC units that were no longer necessary with the current heat load in multiple collocation areas at our building. The result: savings of an estimated $20,000 per year, plus a reduction in our current carbon footprint. As I mentioned in a previous post, don’t look for million dollar savings. Find smaller savings that will result in incremental increases in both efficiency and cost savings.

In addition to seeking knowledge (on your own or through trusted advisors), and watching for new technologies that fit your data center environment, don’t forget to look for incentives. This is one I’ll admit nearly passed us by until I was researching something totally unrelated on our electric utility company’s website. I’m still looking into the opportunities and seeing how they’ll fit our current and future plans, but I think there are some definite opportunities. Stay tuned for more on that in a future post. As always, if you have experiences to share about utility company incentives, please let me know.

Bluestone Helps MA Data Center Earn Energy Efficiency Rebate

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Engineering service firm Bluestone Energy Services (www.bluestoneenergy.com) recently helped a biotech firm to receive incentives from the local utility for achieving energy efficiency measures in its Boston area-based data center, according to a report by DatacenterDynamics.

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Tags: 1102 GRAND, choosing a data center, colocation, data center, data centers, data management, Data Suites, energy efficient, energy savings, energy-efficiency, Green IT, greening it, heating and cooling, Midwest Internet hub, temperature control, VoIP This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 8:42 am and is filed under 1102 GRAND, Colocation Information, Green IT, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.