Grow a Greener Data Center

The practical, start-to-finish guide to 'greening' any data center -- boosting productivity, energy efficiency, and ROI.

* Step-by-step coverage of greening each major data center technology, including physical construction, power, cooling, servers, and equipment consolidation and virtualization.
* Presents IT and facilities design strategies that can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in energy costs.
* Introduces incentive programs that can help businesses pay for green initiatives.

Data centers have historically had a huge, negative environmental impact -- consuming massive amounts of power, emitting pollutants, and discarding huge amounts of machine waste. Companies are increasingly objecting to the financial and public relations costs they are paying for environmentally insensitive data centers. Fortunately, it's now both possible and cost-effective to run a 'green data center.' Grow a Greener Data Center shows how. Douglas Alger makes the business case for greening data centers, and presents technologies, design strategies and operational approaches that can help any company improve the energy efficiency and 'eco-friendliness' of their IT facilities. He walks step-by-step through 'greening' physical construction, power, cooling, and servers; then covers equipment consolidation, virtualization, and much more. Along the way, Alger also identifies available utility and government incentive programs. In many environments, Alger's techniques can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in energy costs alone. Beyond the data center, Alger identifies green business practices extending to all server environments, including cost-effective water and conservation, recycling, and e-waste management. For those building new data centers, he even offers specific guidance on limiting environmental impact through siting, building materials, landscaping, and job-site construction practices.