If data center operations were held to the same standards of efficiency as the auto industry, it would have been bailed out long ago. Most data centers, on average, are only using 56% capacity. Nearly half of the resources used to house, cool, and power servers are wasted. When choosing a data center, a little research can go a long way toward finding companies that do not conform to this statistic. While hosting companies may keep operational information confidential, a superficial examination of a few key issues can help to determine the relative environmental impact of different hosting options. n nDetermine the Location of the Hosting Centern nThe adage “location, location, location”, is as true for hosting centers as it is real estate property. Considering the level of energy necessary to cool off servers, even without the added burden of compensating for a high heat environment, the benefits of locating data centers in colder climes should be quite obvious. However, apparently it’s not. Some hosting companies have ignored climate when placing data centers. One example of such a company, whose name may rhyme with Backspace, has chosen to locate data centers in San Antonio, Texas. The relative cooling costs for such a move, pardon the pun, follow an almost exponential increase compared to companies that choose to locate in cooler areas. n nBe Aware of Hosting Types and Their Environmental Benefitn nIn addition to the technical distinctions between different hosting configurations, environmental impact also varies dramatically between server solutions. First in effectiveness, and rising in popularity, is cloud hosting. Based on the concept of shared resources available on demand, cloud hosting network capacity is not always the same for each individual. Therefore, people can share the same servers, with different service depending on temporally based need. This solution is ideal for companies that experience “flood events”, such as a Halloween company that receives the most traffic during October and minimal visits for the rest of the year. By sharing server space, the overall number of servers can be decreased, as opposed to dedicated hosting, wherein each site receives its own server. While this ensures enough room for site usage and isolates down time events, each site seldom uses the full capacity of the server, which leads to huge amounts of energy waste, and enormous monthly maintenance costs for row after row of servers. Somewhere in between these two options lies shared hosting. Shared hosting is similar to cloud hosting in that websites share resources; however, these resources are fixed to individual servers, rather than being available on demand. This means that shared hosting doesn’t provide the scalability that cloud hosting does, but, more relevant to the ecological discussion, it also means that legacy sites, those that are old and inactive, take up the same amount of resources as active sites, in turn creating tremendous inefficiencies. n nUse Sustainable Energy to Run Hosting Operationsn nNo matter how much energy you are using to power a data center, sustainable energy sources will lower environmental impact. Sustainable energy options such as solar and wind turbines are the immediate conclusion for most hosting companies, but some corporations are choosing to think outside the box when it comes to alternative power sources. Companies like eBay have already taken the lead on this initiative by powering 500 kW of energy usage at their headquarters. Additional options include strategies with cogeneration and microturbines. The boldest leaders are integrating multiple techniques to achieve the greatest carbon footprint reduction. n nCreate Offsets for Hosting Environmental Detrimentsn nHopefully, hosting companies will take into consideration the above factors when trying to become environmentally friendly. However, other options exist if your data center is already inconveniently located and without the latest and greatest technological innovations. Yes, I am talking about offsets. The red headed stepchild of sustainable efforts, carbon credits, is actually an effective way of reducing overall carbon footprints. Additionally, recycling old equipment and using higher temperature standards are also effective means of reducing total impact. At the end of the day, being sustainable is a conscious effort that begins from the ground up. In the case of web hosting, this is a literal statement. Web hosting is energy intensive, but considering the factors above can help you reduce your carbon footprint, and meet sustainability goals. n nArticle Contributors included:n n* Brian Easter, CEO @ NeboWebn* Chris Allison, Campaign Manager @ NeboWebn* Kimm Lincoln, Director of Search Engine Marketing @ NeboWebn
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