Data centers can be costly, more so if they quickly drain your resources. How much do you spend on them every month? Don’t be afraid to calculate your expenses since there’s a lot you can do to keep costs under control. Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind.
Perform an energy audit
There’s a good chance your IT staff has never thought about how much energy your server room and data center are consuming. The first thing to do to rectify the problem is to identify how much power is being used.
To get you started, here are a few questions to ask:
- How much of the data center’s power budget goes to support systems?
- How much goes to IT systems?
- How much IT output do you get for every kilowatt/hour of power used by your data center IT systems?
Answering these questions will help you determine just how efficient, or inefficient, your data center is.
Decrease IT workload
When you save a single watt of energy at the server level, you save nearly 3 watts in data center costs.
How do you decrease the IT workload? Virtualization is a common and effective tactic. Instead of wasting money on cooling the servers in your data center, have them hosted by your IT provider and have their technology delivered to you via the internet. This allows you to eliminate some servers from your office and reduce cooling costs.
For alternate ways to decrease server workload, you can also:
- Eliminate unused servers
- Consolidate servers
- Purchase more energy-efficient technology
Mind humidity and temperature levels
Because many non-IT personnel don’t understand the data center, they assume incorrectly that the room must be kept as cold as the North Pole to protect sensitive data. This is not true.
While excessively high temperatures, humidity, or dry conditions can harm your data, most modern-day data center equipment can withstand a wide range of humidity levels and temperatures. Because of this, you need less cooling and dehumidification. Consult an IT professional for the right temperature.
You can also cool down your data center with an economizer system. This technology uses cool air from the outside to provide “free” cooling cycles for your data center.
Want more tips on reducing your overall IT bill? Curious to learn more about virtualization? Call us today to talk to our experts.
