The COVID-19 crisis has produced a proliferation of data mainly due to the development of remote work. However, it is unlikely that after such a qualitative leap, the world of work will go backwards. Indeed, for many professionals, remote work has become the new norm. Faced with such an influx of data and the ecological risks that this poses, what should we do? The solution would lie in the principle of ecological data centers or Green data centers.
What is a data center?
The data center or data center in French is a place where all of a company's information systems are grouped together. The data center can also be a service provider that serves several companies.
What do we mean by information system? It is a set of equipment such as central computers, network and telecommunications equipment, servers, etc.
The objective of data centers is to create a controlled and secure environment with continuous energy (presence of an emergency system) in order to provide quality IT services to businesses.
Unfortunately, like mining with graphics cards , these data centers are greedy for rare metals, rare earths and electricity. In addition, the heat produced by machines in cooling zones with very powerful air conditioners.
The Green data center
The ecological data center or green data center is a type of installation whose objective is to minimize the negative impacts of the Internet on the environment. This requires optimizing the entire installation from project design to actual operation of the data centers. Thus, it is necessary to optimize the cooling systems, but also the energy consumed by the servers. Everything must be rethought in order to minimize the energy consumed while increasing, or at least keeping intact, the efficiency of the servers. Even buildings must be redesigned to optimize electricity and water consumption.
Finally, for green data to be as effective as possible, there must be regular analyzes in order to know the performance of the center in order to limit CO2 emissions and water consumption.
What else do Green data centers bring?
The essential contributions of the Green data center are not visible to the naked eye. This ranges from optimizing heat dissipation to better airflow design. For example, the green data center will rather favor ecological techniques such as free cooling or free chilling instead of the usual air conditioning system which consumes much more energy.
In addition, in terms of energy, we are much more promoting the use of renewable energy for electricity and various water conservation and recycling techniques. Everything is used to minimize unnecessary energy consumption and recycling where possible.
Green data then undertakes to promote all so-called ecological techniques. It is an ethic and a commitment to sustainability.
Moreover, in France, the company Ikoula which offers a professional VMware is committed to the environment!
The future of Green data centers.
There are two types of Green data centers, those which were originally designed as is and those which were originally traditional data centers and which have undergone a transformation.
However, not all data centers can afford the possibility of transforming into a Green data center. Indeed, the cost is often prohibitive because of the complexity which requires a certain amount of know-how. In addition, for some Data centers, the entire building must be modified and redeveloped.
So, it seems that the future leans more towards new green data centers. Especially since there are a large number of organizations interested in this problem. For example, it is very likely that in the future, more and more Green data centers will be installed in very cold regions. These regions indeed offer a cooling system that is almost inexpensive and consumes very little energy.
Others go even further, installing Green data underwater so that we can consume water directly at its source and take advantage of the very low temperature as a cooling system. Obviously, this system will require a very waterproof installation.
Conclusion
With the development of remote working and the arrival of new technologies that require a lot of energy, the development of Green data centers therefore corresponds to an adequate long-term response to the ecological question. It is therefore very likely that we will see an acceleration in the development of Green data centers in the future.
