ICT for Societal Challenges - European Commission - Europa

Reducing the energy consumption of Data Centres
In the era of information and data deluge, data centres play an increasingly critical
role in every aspect of our socio-economic activity. While there is an insatiable need
for more computation and storage power, the energy consumption in data centres
poses an “energy wall” that must be addressed to be able to advance to more
powerful data centres. Moreover experience has shown that up to now only a holistic
approach leads to the most efficient and sustainable solutions. This starts from the
decision on the data centres location all the way up to the technologies used in the
various systems, and the reuse of the heat that is produced by them.
The Games and FIT4GREEN projects are two ongoing initiatives on energy efficiency
for data centres exploring two different approaches.
GAMES aims at developing innovative
methodologies for individual Green, Real-
Time and Energy-aware IT Service Centres. A
Green IT Service Centre is an infrastructure for
executing business services and a repository for
the storage, management, and dissemination of
data in which the mechanical, lighting, electrical
and computer systems are designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimum
environmental impact. Thanks to its holistic approach, GAMES is expected to increase
energy efficiency in data centres by up to 25%.
GAMES
The project will adopt an innovative approach taking into account the interrelations between
different layers (business/applications, infrastructure, facility) and their effect on energy
consumption.
It will deliver a methodology and toolset for the holistic design and operations monitoring
of green IT service centres, trading-off Quality of Service, performance, virtual and physical
resource allocation and overall energy efficiency.
http://www.green-datacenters.eu/
Funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)
Duration: 2010 - 2012
29