When pondering the exponential growth of business and technology over the past decade, one can easily imagine that power consumption would be a topic of conversation. When data centers began to grow and expand in popularity in the early 2000s, the rate of energy being consumed was startling. Greedy server equipment, grids, and network components digested billions of kilowatt hours, which was truly not a model that could be supported over the long term. Fortunately, a mixture of cloud computing and operational tactics have begun to change the energy landscape.
Virtualization
Traditional physical servers are waning in popularity now that cloud computing and colocated data center environments have become the norm. Through virtualization, resources are used much more effectively thanks to software layers, containers, and partitions. A physical server that would previously only have housed one application may now house dozens, hundreds, or thousands thanks to the transition to virtualization. This reduces the need to purchase and maintain actual hardware and greatly cuts the energy demand to run all of those devices.
Data Center Efficiency
One trend in data center management is the shift to hyperscaled, or impressively large, colocated data centers. More efficient infrastructure, energy-wise construction concepts, and smart utility arrangements will help reduce the carbon footprint of these facilities and control energy consumption in the future. As time passes, old “energy vampire” equipment will be replaced with more efficient models or additional virtualized environments. The focus must remain on energy efficiency and intelligent operational practices while the demand for data center services increases.
Cloud Computing
Steadily rising numbers of companies are transitioning away from traditional computing environments that required extensive real estate, major investment in technical equipment, and substantial energy resources. Public and private cloud offerings have allowed organizations to grow and scale without needing to create rooms of hardware. These businesses have discovered that cloud can be a secure, highly flexible, and reliable way to store data and host applications. As everything from company contact information to disaster recovery programs and sales systems moves into the cloud, the traditional drain on energy resources will be minimal.
Energy usage will more than likely continue to increase over the next decades. However, smarter data center operations, devices, equipment, and strategies can help limit that increase to manageable levels. For more information on decreasing the need for energy resources in the organization, contact Copper State today.
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