The IT industry’s data centers – purveyors of consumer necessities like shopping, videos, social networking and massive amounts of queries, could run out of power within four years. If they don’t make the shift to green, that is. They could leave demanding consumers with dark screens and very little options for fun, knowledge and entertainment.
What would happen if you went to purchase something online or do an online search and nothing happened?
The EPA predicted that grim possibility in 2007 in their “Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency’, saying within 5 years, power failures and limited availability would stop operations at more than 90 percent of U.S. data centers.
As early as 2006, Gartner Consulting warned that nearly 50 percent of data centers worldwide would have trouble finding electricity to power and cool their computing equipment.
Fact is, the amount of electricity used by data centers in the U.S. is expected to nearly double by 2011, growing from 180-billion kilowatt hours of electricity used in 2007 on power and cooling, costing more than $29 billion.
On February 9th, The BPM Forum released their “Think Eco-Logical – IT Sustainability Imperatives in Internet and eCommerce Business” in conjunction with Rackable Systems and Intel, outlining results from a comprehensive survey of over 275 IT professionals conducted in December 2008 –January 2009. Participants included search providers, online retailers, SaaS companies, other Internet service providers.
February 15th, 2009 at 10:43 am
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