Core Services Corporation, an Oracle Certified Partner, plans to integrate green practices into its data centers’ heating and cooling systems, as well as minimize the environmental harm of its future data centers.
“Just about every year since the inception of Core’s first data center, we have seen server power requirements go up as well as our utilities rates,” said Jim Bistis, President and CEO of Core Services. “Some of these newer high-density servers can create hot spots and, as a result, the need to add power becomes unending.” Bistis said Core has taken a long term approach to this problem by investing in more energy-efficient equipment and aggressively consolidating servers where possible.
As many IT managers are concerned with the disadvantages of using available power management tools, Core Services has seen nothing but benefits. According to Bistis, these power management tools have provided encouraging benefits for the business already.
“We are finding that the use of power management tools actually increases reliability and uptime of our servers by reducing stresses on our data center power and cooling systems,” said Bistis. “While Core remains focused on uptime performance, it won’t be exclusive of power management. We are anticipating, as we add more of these power management features, that we will see our overall energy requirements drop by as much as 10 to 15 percent.”
Not only is Core Services implementing these green practices into its data centers, but it’s also applying them into its physical buildings, sites, and infrastructure. The business has been taking several steps in the past year towards bettering its current data centers. Core services has consolidated and virtualized servers using the Sun Container technology, which emits less heat for the same footprint. They have also continued upgrades to energy efficient and more powerful servers, including Sun’s “CoolThread” technology in its UltraSPARC T1, T2 and T2 plus processors, with the T1 processors being possibly one of the most eco-responsible ever created (www.sun.com).
Core Services has also refreshed disk storage technology with higher capacity drives, adjusted the thermostat set point of current data centers, as well as significantly reduced the dissipation from its tape libraries, while also reducing power consumption by upgrading its tape drives and including a VTL/data de-duplication backup solution.
“We strive to have a positive impact on the environment and community that will support a healthy and sustainable future for generations to come,” said Bistis. “We are excited about many of the new technologies and options available and look forward to building new greener data centers that have a positive impact on both the environment and our business.”
Core Services is also planning to complete the construction of a new data center later this year. The company has applied several green policies and plans to its future data centers, including implementing “economizers” to allow outside cool air to compliment data center cooling systems, discussing options for fly-wheel diesel generators, developing a solar photovoltaic system, and researching rain water collection systems to supplement cooling towers.
Core Services is also building sites close to public transportation for employees, as well as providing bicycle storage facilities and changing rooms for employees that would use these sources of public transportation.