Energy efficient data centres for Sun
ConvergenceAsia staff
23/08/2007

As part of the company's ongoing commitment to greening its global operations, Sun Microsystems has unveiled three active, new data centres in Santa Clara, California; Blackwater, U.K.; and Bangalore, India.

Put into operation between January and June of this year, all three data centres were built using breakthrough designs and next-generation energy efficient systems, power and cooling. Sun estimates that the company's data centre efforts will save the planet nearly 4,100 tons of CO2 per year and trim 1 per cent from Sun's total carbon footprint.

The Santa Clara data centre is the largest of the three data centres at 76,000 square feet. Phase One of the Santa Clara project began with a hardware consolidation and refresh project that took three months, increased compute power by more than 450 per cent and is expected to save $1.1 million in energy costs a year. Accomplished in 12 months, Phase Two involved designing the Santa Clara space and installing the new hardware. Sun estimates that Phase Two will yield an additional 30 per cent savings in energy costs.

"There are many projects, big and small, that businesses can begin today to make a difference. It doesn't have to be complicated and the ROI can be larger than you'd imagine," said Dave Douglas, Vice President of Eco Responsibility for Sun Microsystems. "We're opening the doors on our new global data centres today to show what's possible in a relatively short time frame and because we believe strongly that sharing is the path to a greener world."

Through its efforts in California, the UK and India, Sun has reduced 267,000 square feet of data centre space worldwide into approximately 133,000.

Key learningan from the project is available at www.sun.com/aboutsun/environment/green/datacenter.jsp to help other companies green their own data centres and be kinder to the planet.

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