BLOG – The Increasing Need for Data Centre Energy Efficiency, without Performance Compromise

Green IT has become a more prominent issue for businesses over recent years, with increasing power bills, tight budgets and growing environmental concerns, all impacting on IT departments ability to meet the growing demand for IT services.  In light of these challenges, it is important for organisations to embrace IT energy efficiency principles and practices to remain both productive and competitive in this progressively digital age.

The amount of energy consumed by the world’s data centres is set to treble in the next decade, putting an enormous strain on energy supplies and dealing a hefty blow to efforts to contain global warming, experts say¹. And this doesn’t take into consideration wider IT appliances such as computers.

Historically, low-power data centre and IT solutions meant a compromise in performance, and this has deterred some consumers, with many IT executives prioritising reliability and security over energy efficiency. This is especially true following recent IT security breaches such as the ransomeware attack which crippled the NHS, with forty per cent of respondents to a recent survey stating they were more concerned than ever about the threat of a data breach².

IT suppliers and vendors are responding to these challenges by producing more energy-efficient server and IT solutions that don’t provide a trade off in performance, and ADDC are at the forefront of this trend. Their flagship server, the SR-90 disrupts the paradigm of traditional and current data centre construction and operation combining reduced real estate and power requirements, no cooling and air conditioning requirements and vast environmental benefits while providing much greater processing power at greatly reduced through life operating costs. In fact cooling alone accounts for over 40% of total energy costs in data centres!³

ADDC’s full server range utilise the revolutionary BioDigitalPC®, the first truly credit card sized PC.  It combines super-fast processing and low energy consumption in a tiny footprint that is perfect for mobile operations. The BioDigitalPC® consumes between 5W and 10W of power, 90% less than a regular desktop computer. The combination of the BioDigitalPC® along with the advanced technology of ADDC’s servers really provides maximum energy efficient, and maximum energy cost savings.

C4i Systems have taken the opportunity to have one of ADDC’s server solutions externally tested, providing testimony that they meet top security requirements. The MDC-8 server solution is compliant with Cyber Essentials, ensuring that users can be confident that it meets government mandated best practice for cyber security. In addition to this C4i Systems has also had the BioDigitalPC® externally validated to IL3 level for use in conjunction with BeCrypt™ DiskProtect® solutions. Allowing the user the peace of mind that if required to handle more sensitive information, they can continue to use BioDigital® solutions.

The importance of embracing IT energy efficiency has never been more urgent than it is today, so if you want to discuss how C4i Systems can help your business take the first step towards becoming greener please contact us.

¹ http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-data-centres-to-consume-three-times-as-much-energy-in-next-decade-experts-warn-a6830086.html

² https://www.siteltd.co.uk/blog/index.php/2017/05/secure-it-environments-finds-46-unclear-whether-data-centre-energy-efficiency-has-improved-in-two-years/

³http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Improving-data-centre-power-consumption-and-efficiency