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Data Centre Efficiency: Greener Hosting

Posted 04th November, 2014 by Aliysa

We don’t use the heat generated from our Data Centre to grow tomatoes nor do we have a wind farm in the yard but that doesn't mean we're not ‘green’! Here at Tsohost, we're fully committed to reducing the carbon footprint of our operations and providing 'greener hosting', by adopting more efficient and cost effective IT practices.

Achieving a PUE of 1.3:

During the build of our first Tier 3 2N Data Centre in Slough, we focused on researching technologies and techniques that would produce the most energy and cost efficient results, without compromising on quality. This led to the decision to power our entire facility with renewable energy, generated from hydroelectric and wind power.

As a result of this, we recently achieved our target PUE (Power Usage Efficiency) score of 1.3 at 15% capacity! This means that for every watt of power that our facility consumes, only 0.3 of a watt is used on non-IT related equipment like lighting and cooling, making our Data Centre one of the most efficient in the country.

Cooling Systems:

We closely manage the excess heat produced by our facility to maintain a consistent component temperature, which increases the efficiency and longevity of hardware. Cold aisle containment units sit over the top of our server racks, creating a 'bank' of cold air with a constantly maintained temperature range between 16-21°C. This layout significantly reduces energy costs by minimising the chance of any hot spots being formed, which can often happen in conventional cooling which try to cool the entire room.

Inergen Fire Suppression System:

Our facility also takes advantage of the non polluting 'Inergen Fire Suppression System', which utilises three natural atmospheric gases - nitrogen, argon and carbon dioxide.


Future Plans:

Actually, using the excess heat from our Data Centre to grow tomatoes isn't a million miles away from our next step towards greater efficiency! Over the next 6 months, we’ll be working on a system to vent the hot air which returns from our cold aisle containment (at about 27°C) to heat our HQ.

Categories: Tsohost News, Data Centre Build

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