Green Data Centre IT Showing Growth

Enterprises’ investment in environmentally-friendly data centre systems will grow sharply over the next five years, rising to represent 28 percent of the total data centre market, according to a study released on Thursday by Pike Research.

The company found that, in a change from the past, companies are now focused on implementing systems that will reduce their energy expenses and carbon emissions. As a result, global revenues associated with green data centre technologies will grow from $7.5bn (£4.3bn) to $41.4bn by 2015, the report found.

The increase in interest is partly due to greater awareness of the financial benefits of greater efficiency, according to Pike analyst Eric Woods.

“The cost of energy has seldom been a concern for IT departments in the past, and there was little incentive to invest in energy efficiency improvements,” he said in a statement. “But as data centre energy costs become more visible, the financial benefits of moving to a greener mode of operation are being recognised by CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.”

Wider Transformation

The shift is part of a broader shift in data centre technology, which is seeing the growing use of adaptable technologies such as virtualisation, Woods said. This wider shift is also changing the way data centres are designed and the relationship between the IT and business sides of organisations, he said.

Power and cooling infrastructure products are to make up the largest proportion of the green data centre market segment, making up 46 percent of the segment’s revenues by 2015, according to the study.

The second-largest category will be energy-efficient IT equipment, accounting for 41 percent of the market segment, and monitoring and management equipment, with 14 percent, according to the “Green Data Centres” report.

Opposition

The increased focus on green IT hasn’t been universally welcomed by the data centre industry – in fact, earlier this week, data centre operators threatened to quit the UK over the government’s recently announced energy policies.

As part of the protest, Alex Rabbetts, managing director of data centre company Migration Solutions, cited a section of the government’s energy statement which allegedly promised that domestic bills would only rise by 1 percent by 2020, while business’ bills would rise by up to 43 percent as policies are implemented to reduce carbon emissions.

Investment in green technology appears to be having some effect, according to a June study by Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), a global consortium dedicated to reducing the energy consumption of end-to-end computing.

The study showed what CompTIA, a non-profit trade association for the IT industry, called a “sizeable reduction” in the annual CO2 emissions associated with IT equipment, a reduction of more than 32 million metric tonnes worldwide since 2007.