Frankfurt, 13. Februar 2023. Vorsätze für das neue Jahr kehren jedes Jahr wieder. Dabei folgt oft die Erkenntnis, sich zu hohe Ziele gesetzt zu haben. Unabhängig davon, ob als Privatperson oder Unternehmen, zählt Nachhaltigkeit seit Jahren zu den wichtigsten Bestrebungen. Die IT-Branche gilt als einer der größten Stromverbraucher. Deshalb ist sie sich ihrer Verantwortung gegenüber der Umwelt in besonderem Maße bewusst. Gerade Serverhardware für neue Technologien wie Blockchain, Machine Learning und Artificial Intelligence wird immer leistungsfähiger. Infolgedessen steigt der Energieverbrauch in Datacentern, die diese Daten verarbeiten. Aus diesem Grund spielt ein energieeffizienter Betrieb eine immer wichtigere Rolle. “We notice that the topic of sustainability has been moving into sharper focus for some time,” explains Jerome Evans, founder and managing director of firstcolo GmbH. Both data center operators and users are engaging with it more intensively. With the right strategy, large amounts of electricity can be saved. Many German operators are already working successfully on this.
To further advance Green IT, data center operators are continuously developing new solutions. They pursue different strategies to achieve their goals step by step. “External data centers solve the problem of very high demand for additional server and cloud infrastructure for many companies,” Evans explains. Due to limited IT resources, many businesses cannot meet this demand internally.
This overload often creates security vulnerabilities. At the same time, sustainability aspects fall into the background. Additionally, many data centers are only utilized up to 20 percent. The reason is often their design for peak loads that are rarely reached.
“By migrating existing infrastructures, this gap can be significantly reduced,” the colocation expert explains. Up to 50 percent of the energy used can be saved. The affected servers then operate more securely and efficiently. They can also be scaled much more easily.
Rising energy prices intensify the focus on Green IT and energy efficiency. IT infrastructures in industrial companies consume enormous amounts of electricity. This results in significant additional costs. “Conscious economic action and a comprehensive sustainability strategy are not mutually exclusive,” Evans emphasizes.
“By migrating data to a private cloud environment, the energy requirement per server resource used decreases,” Evans continues. This significantly reduces effective energy consumption. The reason is the higher efficiency of the infrastructure used.
Additionally, colocation operators rely on green and highly efficient hardware. This includes sensors for measuring air changes, modern cooling systems, and energy-efficient processors. All these measures contribute to the sustainability of modern data centers.
In conclusion, Evans states: “Step by step, operators are succeeding in meeting the growing data volume. At the same time, sustainability aspects are increasingly moving into focus.”
