Microsoft’s energy saving cloud
29 October 2010
I just saw Rob Bernard our Chief Environment Strategist in an interview on CNN on how we and the ICT industry are trying to tackle the increasing energy consumption of data centers.
Even though listening to music today is consuming half the energy that CDs were using a decade ago, cloud services are expanding. This is a serious issue and we are doing everything we can to build our own data centers responsibly in natural environments that can cool the servers down and trying with the objective of making to make the reliance of energy cooling obsolete.
We’re also looking at ways the computational algorithms and sensors can distribute the demands on the processors more evenly, letting us shut down or put to sleep servers not being used. We are now moving to a generation 6 modular system we call
IT PAC that will reduce the need for mega data centers and pack the servers in portable containers, constructed to recycle the heat and maximize natural cool air. We are also building them in areas that will allow us to exploit alternative energies that are in places with either wind, solar or hydro and working with the local governments find ways on the energy mix. What would greatly improve the energy mix is continued focus on Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard to help alternative energy to be more readily available to data centers and increased incentives for companies to invest in research and development.
Click
here to take a look at Rob's interview on CNN.