Environmental Leader

A new data center at Syracuse University will be among the world’s most efficient, using half as much energy as a typical data center.

The $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center is a joint project between Syracuse University, IBM and the state of New York.

The data center will feature:

• an on-site electrical co-generation system fueled by natural gas microturbine engines, which will generate 100 percent of the center’s electricity.
• the liquid cooling system will use double-effect absorption chillers to convert exhaust heat from the microturbines into chilled water to cool the data center’s servers, with sufficient excess cooling to handle the needs of an adjacent building
• more than $5 million in IBM-donated equipment, design services and support, which includes supplying the electrical cogeneration equipment and servers such as IBM BladeCenter, IBM Power 575 and an IBM z10 systems.

The data center will be a showcase for new technologies and energy efficiency.

U.S. data centers consume more than 62 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually at a total cost of about $4.5 billion, an amount equal to what 5.8 million U.S. households would use in a typical year, according to a press release.  Total U.S. electricity devoted to data centers could double by 2011.

In India, IBM is helping build two data centers for Sistema Shyam TeleServices that will improve efficiency by 20 percent, according to a press release.

Sistema Shyam TeleServices, a global telecom player, is using green data centers to take on larger numbers of customers while keeping down operating costs and emissions.

Nearly all senior-level IT executives are at least discussing a green information technology strategy, while 45 percent have already implemented green IT initiatives, according to a recent survey by Symantec Corp.

A new study from Digital Realty Trust Inc., a wholesale datacenter provider, indicates that 73 percent of the survey participants identified energy efficiency as the key aspect of a green datacenter.