Firms Making Their Own ‘Green’ Standards
North American companies want energy-efficient data centers, but are struggling to define what “green” really means, and often developing their own metrics and standards. That’s the conclusion of a Digital Realty Trust (DRL) survey of enterprise data center users, which found strong commitment to energy efficiency but no clear standard emerging to assess and track these green initiatives.
“The findings provide compelling evidence that green initiatives will play a significant, long-term role in data center planning and design,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust. “Our goal for this survey was to determine whether the greening of the data center is a passing fad or represents the emergence of a deeper trend in technology that will permeate the industry for years to come.”
Fifty five percent of companies polled said they have already established a detailed green data center strategy, while more than 80 percent said their strategy addresses facility design and operations in addition to computers and servers. The facility-level focus reflects a comprehensive approach to green data center initiatives, according to Digital Realty. In addition, more than 60 percent of companies said that having a green data center strategy will be an important factor in their vendor selections over the next 24 months, indicating that IT vendors and data center providers will need to be green to compete.
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