Monday, July 05, 2010

Belgacom signed the European Code of Conduct for datacenters

On June 3, Belgacom signed the European Code of Conduct for datacenters.

What is it this Code of Conduct about?

The electricity that is needed to run datacenters makes up for a substantial share of the electricity consumption in the European Union. By 2020, the estimated electricity consumption of 56 TWh per year in Western Europe is expected to increase to 104 TWh per year. The rapid growth in energy consumption has serious consequences. It is important to maximize the energy efficiency of datacenters to keep carbon emissions under control, as well as to efficiently manage the strain on the infrastructure, caused by the increase in energy consumption.

The European Code of Conduct has been created in response to this increasing energy consumption in datacenters and the need to reduce the related impacts on environment, economy and energy supply security. The aim is to inform and stimulate datacenter operators and owners to reduce energy consumption in a cost-effective manner without jeopardizing the reliability and operational continuity of the services provided by datacenters.

The Code of Conduct aims to achieve this by improving understanding of energy demand within the datacenter, raising awareness and recommending energy efficient best practice and targets. It is a voluntary initiative aimed to bring interested stakeholders together, including the coordination of other similar activities by manufacturers, vendors, consultants and utilities.

Datacenter owners and operators, datacenter equipment and component manufacturers, service providers and other large procurers of such equipment are invited to participate in the Code of Conduct, to help address the issue of energy efficiency and to reduce the carbon footprint of datacenters.

What does the Code of Conduct mean in practice?

As a datacenter owner, Belgacom signed the Code of Conduct. We are determined to meet the commitments relevant to our organisation’s category. In other words: we will measure our efforts, describe how we measured them and provide a yearly report on the progress that has been made.

The following data will be collected monthly and reported annually (by February 28 for the previous year) to the JRC (Joint Research Centre):

• - energy consumption for main IT equipment;
• - total facility energy consumption;
• - if more meters are installed, data should be reported for these meters, including a description of the equipment included in the energy consumption;
• - IT rated electrical load capacity of the facility.

More information can be found at: EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres
or Google ‘European code of conduct for datacenters’.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Did you know… about power interrupts on the grid?

Next to the ‘need for speed’ there is also the ‘need for power’. Servers and other datacenter equipment are in constant need for electrical power. But are you aware of the number of interrupts that happen on the electricity grid? On April 21 at 4:20 PM we experienced a power cut of 29 minutes and 34 seconds at the Netcenter in Machelen. Our DUPS and diesels took over, avoiding a power interrupt for our customers. Such a long interruption is rather exceptional. Shorter interruptions happen quite regularly. An average of 12 power interrupts per year and per datacenter is not unusual. Needless to say our customers are not aware of these interrupts, as our backup systems do what they need to do when an power interrupt occurs.