The post title says it all pretty much,

How do you go 'Green'?

Virtualizing our systems. Replacing the old hardware with the new one for saving power usage.

Buy new servers, particularly the energy efficient ones(Mostly the old ones suck energy lot).

Create Virtual servers in it if required & possible to run for multiple purpose.

Shutdown your Monitor/PC when not going to use for long time.

Go for Candle Light dinner, and call me too.....

And paint everything & everyone GREEN.

Scientifically proved, its good for eyes ;)

I like gate2vn's advice.

Carbon Off-set your server and office's energy use ;)

Virtualizing is probably the biggest thing you can do I think, since it would allow you to combine many servers into one.

-Buy a bunch of Renewable Energy Credits
-Virtualize servers
-Replace old hardware with new
-Make sure your office is run on "wind" energy.

It's a long list, but I really do not think it's worth it. I mean great, your helping the environment, but your wallet is going to start hurting very, very fast.

or solar energy and please recycle those documents..

I get a lot of papers i can use for printing from work saves me around approx $10 a month of papers..

how much more do those bigger companies use!

Cheapest way is use carbon credits which offset the displacement energy your company uses.

Virtualizing your servers or renting VPS's will both save money and reduce your energy footprint. A dedicated server wastes a lot of power.

Awsome - Thanks everyone for your help.

We've been trying to green for a long time now here are steps we took.

1. Built into our corporate policy a green guide. which included powering down computer monitors when not used. Upgrading all our office equipment to energy efficient hardware. We then virtulized our whole office cutting down the hardware thus increasing efficacy. we also encourage natural light instead of using mains lighting. And today im erecting a small wind turbine :D

2. Virtulize hosting infrastructure instead of having several servers for main site/support portal back-ups we bought 2 new servers clustered them and now virtulize on them. We also use what we call "part time servers" so for example our backup servers are only ever switched on for duration of a backup

3. Our biggest move so far is to use a green powered datacenter we looked at several but most where very expensive, untill we got a email regarding burstNET now being a green datacenter. so where possible now we will be putting services into BurstNET. and where we cant put server into here we carbon offset by planting trees.

These guys from WWO should promote XEN virtualization on their T-shirts :) Xen do really good job here.

firstly, remember the only truly green are those cabbages that believe virtualisation magically reduces power usage - if thats the case then it mainly means you didnt plan it properly in the 1st place ...
and lower power usage itself doesnt mean "green", just lower electricity bills ...

Thanks everyone for your replies, I just saw my thread was mentioned in the WHT newsletter :)

Hi Andrew and all Greenies, I am new to WHT but I can see with topics like these I will really enjoy been a part of this Forum. It is really amazing what difference a little bi can make to help this world keep going round! I saw a documentary on this office built in Melbourne Australia that was designed for specifically to be environmentally friendly. They use no aircon or heating, just airflow, the utilize solar power as well as wind generated build into the building, when the office shuts all terminals are shut down. These are just the basics and make a world of difference, governments should really look into more subsidies for green technology!

Hey Ckarevz, I've seen and been inside that office and it's surprisingly cool inside in summer and warm in winter. It's a great company that run it too, but happy to have you a part of WHT and looking forward to what you post around.

The problem is that the solar panels and wind turbines are still emerging technologies and for small companies its expensive to buy.
Surely they cant run a data centre with them 100% because in the UK renewable energy isn't very reliable due to the weather conditions.

The problem is that the solar panels and wind turbines are still emerging technologies and for small companies its expensive to buy.
Surely they cant run a data centre with them 100% because in the UK renewable energy isn't very reliable due to the weather conditions.

That's a very true and valid point - but going green from what's discussed here can also be the small things like recycling paper, turning off lights/computers at close, etc.

But these technologies will become cheaper in the future just like computers did, eg: the 1TB HDD in Australia was something like $30k, but i just bought a few for $150 each - that was a change that happened over 5-10 years.

In my opinion sometimes it's the small things that make the big difference.

Of course weather conditions always play a huge role as to how effective your renewable energy source is, as long as we are all trying to make a difference no matter how small or large our company or finances are. Every bit of help counts!

They are also working on a system now where you are able to store the renewable energy source and the public can put their own energy back in to the grids and the government will then reimburse the supplier. This is a fantastic way to give people and small business incentive to invest in these technologies.

Oddly enough I just read an article touting how tape is now the belle of the ball in a green datacenter (http://esj.com/Articles/2009/03/31/Tape-Green-Role.aspx?Page=1&p=1).

Outside of virtulization, solid states drives, better PSU utilization, lower voltage processors - what's left in the datacenter for an average host?

I think a great article would be how to go "green" for folks that don't control their own hardware, such as resellers.

I think a great article would be how to go "green" for folks that don't control their own hardware, such as resellers.

I might put on together for all types of people that run hosting companies if people from this thread wish to pitch in and lend a hand?

No offense but this 'going green' crap needs to stop. It's just not money smart right now in my opinion. I mean does it seriously waste that much energy, I think not.

Take my neighbor's house for example. He's got literally 10 computers all running 24/7 in just his office, and then another small server room in the basement running another 20 computers 24/7 and then several computers throughout the house that are on 24/7. It's not that much different than not running them.

Stupid environmental wackos.

Use good quality virtual servers instead of old cheap Dedicated Servers (suck more power) :)

Virtualization is one of the best way to "GO GREEN", as we will be able to sale servers at very low prices and the customers will also be "get greener" saving money by going for VPS according to his need.

firstly, remember the only truly green are those cabbages that believe virtualisation magically reduces power usage - if thats the case then it mainly means you didnt plan it properly in the 1st place ...
and lower power usage itself doesnt mean "green", just lower electricity bills ...

I agree with that, and just to add to that lower electricity consumption does not mean youve gone green..

You have probably taken a step towards reducing your costs of carbon credits etc. but you still need to offset it..

I'm not entirely convinced replacing old hardware for more energy efficient hardware is better for the environment for several reasons:

1) Waste creation with disposal of old hardware
2) Energy costs of creating the new hardware
3) Transportation costs of new hardware / removal of old

No offense but this 'going green' crap needs to stop. It's just not money smart right now in my opinion. I mean does it seriously waste that much energy, I think not.

Take my neighbor's house for example. He's got literally 10 computers all running 24/7 in just his office, and then another small server room in the basement running another 20 computers 24/7 and then several computers throughout the house that are on 24/7. It's not that much different than not running them.

Stupid environmental wackos.

It is people like yourself, in conversations like this that make me laugh, and gives me more energy to re-educate those who are stuck back time. I am say with certainty that his utility bill would be drastically different if those computers were all turned off. Seems like very simple logic to me, so before you make off the wall responses like that please put more thought into your post.

We have established auto shutdown scripts in all our computer labs that turn the computer off at 11PM and the BIOS wakes them at 6:30AM for updates and for normal usage. Also switching dedicated server services to main sources rather than duplicating the service for each administrative body, e.g. email, file storage, etc. Also using virtualization for our remaining servers to combine systems, remove outdated hardware, and increase overall performance. These have all helped my post secondary institution (http://www.environment.uwaterloo.ca/computing/greenit/) to "go green".

See my attached image and follow this little guy he will tell you how to go green.

I go green by using economies of scale....don't reinvent the wheel.

We can go green by several ways

* Reducing carbon emission by introduction of car pooling among your employees

* Introducing renewable energy for power usage

* Purchasing computers and other machineries that consumes lesser power and is friendly to environment

* Giving a green touch to your office premises by planting plants , trees etc


etc etc...

We Have to save power usage.
Unnecessary power usage is practiced all over.We have to curtail it to go green.

1. Virtualize Servers (most people already said this)
2. Purchase energy efficent hardware
3. Use enegery efficient light-bulbs
4. Turn of your monitor when you aren't using it
5. Take public transit or car pool
6. Buy a Hybrid Vehicle
8. Use energy efficient appliances (Air conditioning, washing machine, and etc...)

Those are just some ways.

Get some green paint, but probably already been said along with all the other good ideas! :)

It all depends on your reasons, resources and resolve! :)

I agree with carlgm. Buy green paint.

Look, fact is, the only 'green' things you can do that are effective and truly 'green' are, simultaneously, almost always cost-saving measures. That's how you should gauge it. Is it saving you money by reducing your energy usage? Then it's probably truly 'green'.

Examples of things NOT 'green'.. AHN-Jay's last two (btw, Jay, what happened to 7? :):
6. Buy a Hybrid Vehicle
8. Use energy efficient appliances (Air conditioning, washing machine, and etc...)

There's plenty of information out that to make you seriously re-evaluate rather 6 is actually green. Between the extra manufacturing processes involved in building them to their typically not super-efficient gas engine to the ENTIRE lifecycle of those batteries from creation to how you get rid of them (if you can), Hybrid Vehicles are often less 'green' than just buying a very efficient normal car (like some Hondas or a diesel VW) that get 40+ MPG.

The same goes for 8 if you just take it at it's word. Be sure that this 'energy efficient' appliance is not getting more efficient on energy by sacrificing something that ends up being a bigger detriment to the environment, on the whole, than not. This is less likely if it actually calls itself 'energy efficient' or 'high efficiency', than if it calls itself 'green'.

Frankly I'm immediately distrustful of anything calling itself a Green something or other. Often this is complete FUD, and the product is not even remotely Greener than its competitors. Sometimes it's less efficient AND manufactured at a heavier environmental cost, but they buy 'credits' to 'offset the carbon footprint'. Do some reading on carbon credits. They're a total sham. There's no governing body verifying authenticity that a carbon credit is actually worth the carbon cost of your item (or that it hasn't been sold 2 dozen times).. or that they're even legitimate at all.

Truly Green, to me, means powering stuff off you don't need, carpooling, using newer technologies that sip power instead of guzzle it, and so on. Things that do this because they were designed to do so NOT to be 'green', but to save cash on the electric bill, are the ones I trust. Trust human greed, not humanity's care for the environment. In this one instance, it turns out the greed is going to be better for it than the other (case in point, all the 'work' going into hybrid cars and other 'green' products that end up being worse for the environment than not). Green's a buzz word. Saving cash on electricity isn't.

Oops... I did forget number 7.

Hi

I'm sure you can do other things to save the environment than to buy a website from a company that "claims" to be green.

I haven't used imountain.com but they advertise on WHT and use solar panels for what I'm assuming a certain percentage of their electricity.

Anyone bought wind power to run off of!

While we don't have solar panels, vodien goes green by simple ways that help our company reduce, reuse and recycle. essentially we cut down on all the unnecessary wastage, and invest in better performance servers that perform more efficiently


We have all bank statements delivered electronically
We implemented an electronic, paperless invoicing system
We ensure that all waste that can be recycled is
We recycle packing material received from incoming shipments
We use recycled paper for our administration

1) We use low power Intel Atom servers for internal testing, web development, DNS, firewalls, etc. This saves us significant power usage - and the hardware is cheap (and small - you can get two to a single U with the right chassis)
2) We deliver all statements electronically
3) We recycle all client-generated recyclable waste (ie - boxes, plastic wrap, etc), to ensure that it is disposed of properly
4) We use economized cooling and hot aisle containment strategies to minimize cooling costs
5) We established a recycled server program in partnership with a local technology recycling firm, reducing e-waste by putting usable components back to work
6) At our remote facilities - Cultivating local trees and fauna to increase shade coverage, reducing the solar exposure and thus cooling costs

I have to agree - looking back at these - things that are green tend to save you money, at least in the long run. We're evaluating a mixture of Wind and Solar at one of our remote sites, and the upfront cost is substantial - but it DOES save money in the long term.

I'm intrigued by #6 as we're thinking of doing this ourselves as well -- can I ask how you cultivate local trees and fauna? Do you have an agreement with an organisation who does this on your behalf, or do you have a plot of land that you do the cultivation yourselves, or by some other method?

I'm intrigued by #6 as we're thinking of doing this ourselves as well -- can I ask how you cultivate local trees and fauna? Do you have an agreement with an organisation who does this on your behalf, or do you have a plot of land that you do the cultivation yourselves, or by some other method?

Mostly, #6 is about intelligent restraint

This particular NOC is, as I mentioned, a bit remote (it provides triple play services to a resort and multi-millionaire community). Since the facility itself is not one that customers visit, and as the task is fairly low-maintenance, we just do a little work between projects when we're there. Getting up from the keyboard, and out from underneath the florescents, and doing a little work in the sun makes for a nice breather.

We clear the brush some to allow smaller trees to grow near the NOC, and water them lightly when there has been a dry spell. We do occasionally have a local forest service officer check for unhealthy or dangerous trees within reach of the NOC - these are cut down by a professional and typically sold to the local firewood crew (waste not!).

It was initially recommended that we just flatten the landscape around the facility - but I don't see a reason to cut down trees that are in no danger of falling over, especially when they provide economizing shade. :)

Mostly, #6 is about intelligent restraint

This particular NOC is, as I mentioned, a bit remote (it provides triple play services to a resort and multi-millionaire community). Since the facility itself is not one that customers visit, and as the task is fairly low-maintenance, we just do a little work between projects when we're there. Getting up from the keyboard, and out from underneath the florescents, and doing a little work in the sun makes for a nice breather.

We clear the brush some to allow smaller trees to grow near the NOC, and water them lightly when there has been a dry spell. We do occasionally have a local forest service officer check for unhealthy or dangerous trees within reach of the NOC - these are cut down by a professional and typically sold to the local firewood crew (waste not!).

It was initially recommended that we just flatten the landscape around the facility - but I don't see a reason to cut down trees that are in no danger of falling over, especially when they provide economizing shade. :)

I see! Thanks for your explanation :)

We're thinking of doing that, but NOC doesn't have facilities like that, so I guess we have to consider other means. We're thinking of cultivating trees, but not having a designated land area to do that on does pose a bit of a problem lol. But we're working on that!

Sell more virtualized solutions and ATOM servers ;)

We've virtualised most of our internal infrastructure but we also put in low voltage CPU's where possible (excluding VM Host machines) primarily because all our racks were at their AMP usage limit.

Going green is more of a marketing ploy, we tried it last year and what's funny is when our sales team told prospective customers we had started the process to becoming carbon netral, most of them said they didnt really care as it was the latest corporate gimick. :o)

If you really want to do it, just donate money to those agencies that calculate CO2 usage and plant tree's, but i hope you have deep pockets because it can quickly rack up.

Hah just place a we are now green stamp on your website and call it a day. It seems like everyone is doing it now. But honestly, datacenters use massive amounts of power so I wouldnt call them being green by any means. Sure you can reduce it, but it still doesnt change the fact that it sucks down major power.

Hah just place a we are now green stamp on your website and call it a day. It seems like everyone is doing it now. But honestly, datacenters use massive amounts of power so I wouldnt call them being green by any means. Sure you can reduce it, but it still doesnt change the fact that it sucks down major power.

Eh, I see what you are saying, but I don't agree. Being a green datacenter means reducing the energy footprint as much as is realistically possible. It is not a denial of the fact that the energy footprint exists.

Intelligent, 'green' thinking can yield huge results - some of which translate to saving a lot of money. Let's say that every normal server uses 1 120v amp, for simplicity. In a typical datacenter configuration, you need .7 amps of HVAC for every 1 amp of power. With air containment, that HVAC requirement can easily be cut in half. So instead of 1.7 amps, you're looking at 1.35.

Now, take 40 of those servers in a rack - you were using 68 amps to power and cool these boxes. With containment, you're using 54 amps - that's a whole 15 amp circuit freed up. Apply virtualization at a ratio of 1:4 - or use Atom or embedded computers for ultra-low-load stuff, and you're at 13.5 amps from an original 68. Scale that across hundreds of racks. The energy reduction is huge.

Now, add shade to reduce solar load, and renewable sources like solar and wind units (the solar units incidentally act as shade, reducing the heat absorption of a building), and some facilities can actually get close to net 0 grid reliance (talk about a redundancy feature - too; 'we generate our own power and have the grid and generators for backup'). Actually, in one of our facilities, we're even looking at selling some of the heat from our hot water loop to the nearby buildings for their heating needs. If you take into account the energy they won't spend heating water, the offset is significant.

Green isn't a gimmick if you actually DO it. There are plenty of companies willing to take your money in exchange for the ability to call yourself green. Waste not, want not.

Buying carbon credits. Easiest way. But perhaps not ethically the right way.

EvoSwitch is one good greed DC :)

yeah, sell the trash slogan "green power" and still eating mcdonalls, using my 5.8cc corvette, and other things.

I´m trying to understand what´s the meaning of the term "Green Hosting".

I know that there are ways to save energy, recycle electronics, but I still don´t know how can we get a green hosting.

Thanks.......

. . . and some facilities can actually get close to net 0 grid reliance (talk about a redundancy feature - too; 'we generate our own power and have the grid and generators for backup').
Are you saying there's DCs out there generating their own power with solar on their own roof? Or are you talking offsets here?
Green isn't a gimmick if you actually DO it.
Yep, being "green" for me meant the office had to be off the grid, with its own solar power supply. I'm not saying that a grid connected solar setup isn't great. I just decided to go off the grid for powering the office. Being "green" also meant the power the servers use needed to be offset with solar panels on our own roof. True, not as cheap as buying green offsets or paying someone to plant trees, but it's real.

I get a kick out of hosts paying someone to plant trees and then prancing about proclaiming how "green" they are. Wow, you're suddenly a "carbon neutral host" when someone plants seeds in the ground for you. Amazing stuff and the good folks you gave money to gave you a pdf certificate to prove it. :emlaugh:

Not that I have anything against planting trees. It's just that trees take 10 to 20 years to become effective carbon sequestration devices. That time frame is too long for hosts wanting to market how green they are.

I´m trying to understand what´s the meaning of the term "Green Hosting".

I know that there are ways to save energy, recycle electronics, but I still don´t know how can we get a green hosting.

Thanks.......

The concept of green hosting is that your operation is carbon nutral, so you basically have to offset you're carbon usage against planted tree's who'll convert the amount of carbon you've produced into oxygen.

You would usually start reducing your usage, to make the task more achievable and affordable..

This may save energy indirectly but i had the idea to donate a percentage of profits to cleaner energy programs, and forest regrowth.

Which in theory does exactly the samething as all the suggestions above.
Thanks

It doesn't have to be planting tree's, but when it comes to hosting and the power required to function, planting tree's is really the main option..

Some places will be able to take advantage of local renewable resources, which can help reduce the costs of your operation.. I'm not aware of any commercial data centres that takes advantage of renewable resources though.

Plant a tree in front of your house and call it for the day, thats going green right there =D

The concept of green hosting is that your operation is carbon nutral, so you basically have to offset you're carbon usage against planted tree's who'll convert the amount of carbon you've produced into oxygen.
But how long does a "planted tree" take to become an effective carbon sequestration device? :)

I love trees and stuff, but the whole planting trees for carbon offsets is a bit of a rort, given the vast length of time a planted tree takes to actually start offsetting carbon in a real way. Nice scam though. If I had a lot of land, I'd probably be in on that scam for sure. ;)

Trees produce very little oxygen, time and effort would be better spent keeping the oceans clean, over 75% of oxygen comes from the ocean.

Understand also that a lot of the companies who have gone green, have done so for a reason and sometimes actively promote it as a recommendation.

For example, Media Fire Brand went green not long ago and we've put in so many changes to our process and our systems that we feel we're individually making a difference. Any companies who can show us they are doing the same actually get a discount from us - we don't use it as a selling point, but as an incentive.

We've changed our paper types to 100% recycled, we cut down on the amount of print-outs we make, we're using low voltage everything all over the place and a lot of other steps to make our carbon footprints tiny :)

When I was a nipper I had to worry about remembering to look both ways crossing the road and not to climb trees, kids nowadays have to carry the conequences of our neglect.

I can agree though, some companies do use it from a marketing perspective which I think is the wrong thing to do.

Why dont people just start to really do things that help the world instead of just using the green issue as a marketing plot.

Most people and companies want to go green, not because they care, but because they want to show off with BIG ads on their websites how green and eco friendly they are.

I wonder how many people actually do things and dont make it public.

If someone wants to go green, they can start to adopt for example a Polar Bear for each hosting sign up. Or how about donating cash for sale?

There are tons of websites that will be give you a batch or logo if you donate money. And some others dont but you can still donate online.

For example:
http://www.savebiogems.org/polar/

I dont think any company is green unless they have 100% solar power and dont use cars.

Most of us just do so little for the nature (some dont ever had planted 1 three in their lifes) and use our car for driving 4 blocks away.

Dump GAS. Thats going green. Electric cars arent that expensive anymore. Most people just say they want to go green but when it comes to make the sacrifice they just have a second thought.

We have to be realistic, and fully solar datacenters are not going to be here in the next decade or more. Its too expensive for a massive deployment. But dropping cars, isnt impossible anymore.

Another good suggestion is to use an enterprise wide management system to prevent waste from memos, faxes, and meeting handouts. It also saves on all those costs, and although going green can economically be more expensive initially, usually green solutions end up saving you money over time.

Interesting topic.

What if you dont use a VPS or dedicated server.

How would a small hosting company who use a reseller plan (from another host) calculate the amount of CO2 in tonnes used?

Offsetting such a small amount of CO2 probably would not cost much.

Going green is not a fade; as I remember back in the 80's there was an attempt to "go green" I personally believe that it flopped because the technology was not in place to move forward. Today, it is different. We have not placed the "green" tag on our site but we have recently upgraded our entire network with "green" efficient servers, virtualized the servers and our entire staff is working from home 3 days a week. By 2010 our plan is to have our entire staff home-based.

All of our communication is done through VOIP, electronic fax, Webinars and utilization of our servers to store data. As technology continues to be developed we can maximize the use of it.

great replacing with the new hadrware for saving power usage

Going green can be done in a number of ways, these are some:

1. Purchase carbon credits to offset the carbon dioxide they are putting out into the atmosphere.
2. Virtualization - Sharing resources among customers, so you can more effectively use the server’s hardware.
3. Hosting with energy friendly servers - Using severs that need less power is a great way to lower the cost of hosting and help the environment all at once.

Of course there are many ways to go green these are just some.

use new server, green power supply

use the newest technology and give or sell your old component

Is going green, just as effective as regular hosting? What is the difference? How do I start?

We use the world's first solar powered data centre (http://www.aiso.net) for our actual hosting. Our resons for choosing this facility is explained here - Why Solar (http://www.lightbeingcreations.co.uk/about-us/why-solar)

Then for the rest of our operations it's a combination of:

1. UK office is powered by green electricity from Ecotricity (http://www.ecotricity.co.uk)
2. We reduce our consumption of resources by using online communication as often as possible, such as electronic invoices and online banking
3. Double-sided printing when printing is unavoidable
4. We use recycled paper for most of our office needs
5. We use recycled printer toners
6. When needing to print promotional material, we use www.alocalprinter.com (http://www.alocalprinter.com) who have great eco credentials
7. We reuse equipment, both within the business and through active participation in Freecycle
8. Composting organic waste
9. We recycle waste as far as possible
10. We use energy efficient products, such as light bulbs, where possible
11. Home working to reduce travel
12. Use chemical free, environmentally friendly cleaning products and fully degradable plastic bags from Wikaniko (http://www.thewikanikos.co.uk)
13. Annual planting of an increasing number of trees

Full details of our environmental policy (http://www.lightbeingcreations.co.uk/about-us/ethics-environment) and a recent article I've written on What exactly is Green Web Hosting? (http://www.lightbeingcreations.co.uk/about-us/helios-news/eco-top-tips/2010/jan/what-exactly-is-green-web-hosting)

@Lightbeing Creations
Wow, that's doing a lot for the environment.
Being solar powered is a good idea, but you would need a good amount of solar panels to collect the energy. :P

We use the world's first solar powered data centre (http://www.aiso.net) for our actual hosting.
I'm a HUGE HUGE HUGE supporter of solar power and renewable energies, but the only thing that worries me about "100% off grid" datacenters are their heavy use of batteries to store their power.

Batteries are very harmful to the environment, from their production through to their distribution right up to their disposal. Their whole life cycle is anti green in every aspect.

I know because I power my office with an portable off grid solar setup (4x80w panels and 4x130ah batteries) and the battery bank part of the setup has always urked me, because batteries are not green.

The most environmentally friendly use of solar power is to work with the existing power grid, and put your excess power back onto the grid and take power from the grid during the night period where you're generating none of your own power. This way you do not need batteries. It's also cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

Just my $0.02 :)

Realistically, it would be extreamly unlikely for a typical modern scale commercial datacentre to achieve 100% off grid.

It think it would be an achievement to simply get the facility (the building) running on a zero footprint, and tax the customers to offset footprint for powering rackspace and cooling. Something as simple as the buildings location, design and architecture could reduce the amount of energy needed to cool 1000s of servers, and cooling is where most of the power cost goes.

unfortunately datacentres tend to get built in industrial estates rather than where it would be most energy efficient.

I do agree with what you say AussieBob about using solar (or other source) along with the grid, you would reduce not only the amount of your dependancy on the grid, but also your electric bill too, and lets face it, very penny counts in this ecconomy..

Its the only way the green incentive will work.. Make going green about how much money you can either make, or save, over how much better it is for the envirnment.

Going Green will actually benefit you in long term.

To be honest i think all this "green" nonsense has gone too far.

"Going Green" is just a hype created by the media and hosting companies have naturally taken advantage of this in order to gain more custom =)

In most peoples eyes Green = Good

People think they are doing their bit to save the planet!!

But, to contridict myself, i do agree with ibee, going green will save u a small amount of money in the long term!


Happy hosting =)

<<Signature are to be setup in your profile>>

Call the Hulk to get tips....

No... Going Solar or Wind and having energy efficient servers.

Use less bright colors in your websites. Google introduced it's "BLACK" web search website in order to save energy. The website is called http://blackle.com and it has claimed to save 1,725,453.347 Watt hours of energy.

Use less bright colors in your websites. Google introduced it's "BLACK" web search website in order to save energy. The website is called http://blackle.com and it has claimed to save 1,725,453.347 Watt hours of energy.

Blackle is not affiliated with Google and whilst displaying a black screen uses less power on a CRT there is no difference on an LCD. Their power saving figures are complete nonsense.

Gavin

First thing is to upgrade your old servers to new energy efficient servers.

I think you can purchase energy credits too, the money goes straight into renewable energy such as solar and wind, the energy produced goes right back into the power grid.

Lot's of people just use newer servers that are more energy efficient and then buy carbon offsets and bang, they are now "energy efficient"

The trouble with renewable energy credits is that they have a rightly deserved reputation of not being particularly effective, as they simply buy existing renewable energy that's being produced.

A much better solution is to ensure your investing in new renewable energy generation, as this increases the amount that's out there and reduces the usage of dirty fossil based electricity.

Our datacenter power supplier is Greenpeace Energy and all hardware uses "green" energy efficient components :) I assume we're pretty "green" right?

Well, I guess using Conventional Sources of energies means, you are providing Green Hosting :)
Conventional Sources = Wind Mill Electricity, etc

Water your grass.

I really liked your approach with going green in hosting.
Great thoughts.

Buy new servers, particularly the energy efficient ones(Mostly the old ones suck energy lot).

Create Virtual servers in it if required & possible to run for multiple purpose.

Shutdown your Monitor/PC when not going to use for long time.

Go for Candle Light dinner, and call me too.....

And paint everything & everyone GREEN.

Scientifically proved, its good for eyes ;)

Buy new servers, particularly the energy efficient ones(Mostly the old ones suck energy lot).

Create Virtual servers in it if required & possible to run for multiple purpose.

Shutdown your Monitor/PC when not going to use for long time.

Go for Candle Light dinner, and call me too.....

And paint everything & everyone GREEN.

Scientifically proved, its good for eyes ;)

Haha thats pretty funny!

I would say, for every server you sell, or package, take 25% or any amount of % out of the price and put that money out onto helping a community by building trees, cleaning, etc.

I go green by turning the bathroom light off while leaving. :P

"yeah, sell the trash slogan "green power" and still eating mcdonalls, using my 5.8cc corvette, and other things."


here is the reality -- 151 Front street is not a green data center -
one company (wont mention name) had these green tags all over their site, wind turbines, solar panels, to give off a green impression - they go on to state they operate with only wind and solar power -- :)

anyone visit Toronto, Canada and 151 Front Street?? so see the solar panels and the wind turbines spinning on the lake front?? -- NOT!!!

Biggest problem is this - there are no control, or policing of sites that say they are green as well as data centers. anyone can post a press release we are green -- who will really check and follow up?????

here is the reality -- 151 Front street is not a green data center

Actually, thats probably because 151 Front Street is a carrier hotel, not a data center...

The level of conditioning within individual data centres within 151 Front is entirely dependant on the tenant in question. While we don't advertise anything green related, our facility features professionally recycled floor tiles (for economics, and green), Novec1230 fire suppression (all green), and Chilled Water VIA Enwave (as green as you can get in terms of HVAC), Infrared/motion detecting lighting (green), etc. Do economics play into it? Certainly. Are some of these "green" choices items we knew wouldn't make economic sense (would never break even)? Most certainly.


anyone visit Toronto, Canada and 151 Front Street?? so see the solar panels and the wind turbines spinning on the lake front?? -- NOT!!!


If you want to see a wind turbine spinning on the lake front, try driving down Lakeshore.

Why is there only one? Well, I should think the answer is pretty obvious, people tend to put wind farms, in the most windy, and cold locations.

If you want to see a wind turbine spinning on the lake front, try driving down Lakeshore.

Why is there only one? Well, I should think the answer is pretty obvious, people tend to put wind farms, in the most windy, and cold locations.

Yeah, I see that wind turbine everyday while on VIA rail.

I do the normal stuff like turn off lights and stuff when out the room. But business wise, we store all documents virtually and any paper we use is recycled. If we need a new datacentre soon which I am looking into, eco-friendlyness is something I am looking into.

5.8cc corvette

A 5.8cc corvette probably wouldn't burn much gas at all really, considering it's 1/1000th the displacement I'd imagine the power output wouldn't be much to write home about - not to mention it's hard to attract ladies in a car that sounds like a model airplane. :)

On-topic: Note well that many of the companies who sell "green hosting" aren't directly powered by wind facilities, and it'd be silly to insist they are. If you're not near a nice windy plain, or near the beach, it's kinda impractical to use wind or wave power... and moving the entire facility to make use of such power would probably waste a lot more resources than would be saved.

Most that I'm aware of operate on credits, where they offset their usage against an equivalent amount of green power generation, which is then put into the grid at the most convenient location. Insisting that a DC is powered directly off the green power they purchase, rather than switching credits isn't "green" in the slightest - any idea how much power is lost in transmission lines alone?

Addressing cooling efficiency is going to have a much larger impact on reducing your energy usage than most other areas you could address. I always say you should start there.

One of the things you could also do to go "green" is to start virtualizing as much as possible. Less hardware = "green." and "$ green" (haha) =)

You know I'm reading through this. I see a lot of people say, "buy carbon credits...". Personally I don't feel this is a good way to "become" green. It's a good way to make this organization wealthy. I'm very skeptical about giving money to non-profits right now. You pay money to help earth quake victims, they take a slice off what you pay them, and that money doesn't go to the earth quake victims. Of course we all need money right?

Point is. To be green isn't about buying carbon credits. It's about minimizing your carbon foot print. That doesn't mean, oh just keep doing what your doing and just buy credits. being green is about being green. For instance, If your not in the bathroom turn the light off. If your not in the collocation room, turn the light off. (This maybe easier for some than others). If your still running P3's and P4's you should probably look at upgrading, to minimize the amount of energy you pull.

For instance, My company went to Cloud Hosting about a year ago. We took 5 cabinets, and put everything into about a 1/4 cabinet. Offering full HA, redundancy, etc etc...

We took 7 208v 20amp power drops, and turned it into 1 208v 30 amp drop. Our power usage went from 3360 per month to 560 per month. That is being green in my opinion.

Some other things you can do to greatly impact the Earth are recycle within the corporation, or the building. Light bulbs are another great thing. You can pick up 13w bulbs that are equivalent to 150w bulbs.

Minimizing your footprint. Not using what you don't NEED. Thats being green.

~Michael

For instance, My company went to Cloud Hosting about a year ago. We took 5 cabinets, and put everything into about a 1/4 cabinet. Offering full HA, redundancy, etc etc...

We took 7 208v 20amp power drops, and turned it into 1 208v 30 amp drop. Our power usage went from 3360 per month to 560 per month. That is being green in my opinion.

Minimizing your footprint. Not using what you don't NEED. Thats being green.


I couldn't agree more, thats exactly what we did, compressed 4.5 racks into a double rack (2 racks) one rack is our virtualised infrastructure (was 2 full racks)and the other for client dedi's (was another 2racks/1.5 in use). Forget the carbon, it saved us a ruddy fortune in rackspace and because the racks were only designed for 16amp max, we were paying for a half rack just for the power that we needed even though we had availble rack space....

I am really sorry I missed this thread until now...


firstly, remember the only truly green are those cabbages that believe virtualisation magically reduces power usage - if thats the case then it mainly means you didnt plan it properly in the 1st place ...
and lower power usage itself doesnt mean "green", just lower electricity bills ...

For someone throwing around names like "cabbages", you really should be more careful what you say and how you say it, else you come off looking like some sort of vegetable yourself.

Hardware produced 3-6 years ago is nowhere near the same as hardware produced 2-3 years ago and its nowhere near the same as hardware being produced now. This is true both in terms of energy consumption and capacity.

To suggest that virtualizing now means things were not planned properly 6 years ago, well, sorry to say, but, you need to rethink your stance here.

We have been able to increase our overall capacity by 500% (think CPU, RAM, Disk, etc), double the size of our business - and all the while, have not added a single AMP of power. We are only halfway through our program - by the time we are done, we expect to see a 1000% capacity increase and a 3-4x increase in our business - again, without adding a single AMP.

And please do not talk to me about lowering electric bills - the cost of electricity is completely nominal to the costs of new hardware, data migration, etc, etc, etc

the "easy" way to go green is dump a few grand a month into Carbon Credits or some other "green" offset channel. Meanwhile, those companies are still running their legacy hardware and are still sucking and wasting power like crazy - with fancy "green" hosting tags all over their websites. Want to go green? spend the significant money required to do so.. or, take the easy way out, buy some carbon credits, pay to plant some trees and call yourself green - to each their own I guess

Cheapest way is use carbon credits which offset the displacement energy your company uses.

Exactly - the cheapest and the least effective.. I only like this strategy once a company has invested what is required to optimize their usage as much as possible - then offsetting the rest of their usage makes sense...

Ask some of these bigger, and older web hosting companies who have "green" hosting all over their website (you all know who they are) - how much they are paying per month in carbon credits or whatever.. now ask them how much new power they have to fire up to increase revenue by 20% or 50%, etc..

Their carbon offset costs are a very small percentage of what a full scale, prolonged and extensive hardware refresh, consolidation and migration strategy would cost. It is much easier to keep chewing through cheap power, buy some carbon offset credits and splatter it all over your website - then it is to spend the millions of dollars required to actually reduce ones environmental impact immediately and pushing forward..

I'm still sticking with my story, that buying carbon credits is completely useless, and doesn't do anything, besides put money into someone elses pocket.

Being green starts with YOUR company, not www.buygreencredits.com's company.

For instance, My company went to Cloud Hosting about a year ago. We took 5 cabinets, and put everything into about a 1/4 cabinet. Offering full HA, redundancy, etc etc...

We took 7 208v 20amp power drops, and turned it into 1 208v 30 amp drop. Our power usage went from 3360 per month to 560 per month. That is being green in my opinion.

~Michael - BirdHosting.com

Mike, great comments

What you and many others on this forum do not realize is that by helping us move our dedicated servers to cloud you helped minimize our carbon footprint as well by not using as many servers and we could tell our hosting clients that they are hosted by a "green" company, we did the light bulb thing about 2 years ago and now we are moving slowly to LED lighting for the office (kinda expensive) replacing halogen and CFL's and we recycle everything possible.
We are also looking at planting our flat roof to decrease the temperature in the building and outside - which helps us by running the ac less.

So in turn we became greener because of your suggestions and help, thank you.

BTW we love the cloud setup you got us on - so easy... thanks for all your help.

Mike, great comments

What you and many others on this forum do not realize is that by helping us move our dedicated servers to cloud you helped minimize our carbon footprint as well by not using as many servers and we could tell our hosting clients that they are hosted by a "green" company, we did the light bulb thing about 2 years ago and now we are moving slowly to LED lighting for the office (kinda expensive) replacing halogen and CFL's and we recycle everything possible.
We are also looking at planting our flat roof to decrease the temperature in the building and outside - which helps us by running the ac less.

So in turn we became greener because of your suggestions and help, thank you.

BTW we love the cloud setup you got us on - so easy... thanks for all your help.

amazing comments :)

and yes, the cloud is a big part of this process. ie) better utilization of resources, built on newer, more powerful and more efficient hardware, along with the elasticity and high availability benefits.. very well said

Mike, great comments

What you and many others on this forum do not realize is that by helping us move our dedicated servers to cloud you helped minimize our carbon footprint as well by not using as many servers and we could tell our hosting clients that they are hosted by a "green" company, we did the light bulb thing about 2 years ago and now we are moving slowly to LED lighting for the office (kinda expensive) replacing halogen and CFL's and we recycle everything possible.
We are also looking at planting our flat roof to decrease the temperature in the building and outside - which helps us by running the ac less.

So in turn we became greener because of your suggestions and help, thank you.

BTW we love the cloud setup you got us on - so easy... thanks for all your help.

Thats the point. It takes a lot of research, but we can get smaller more efficient drives, processors, memory, power supplies. Thats were we wanted to be. efficiency is key in hosting, the more you can fit on a 20 amp circuit, or in a rack, the more you can make, more you bring home. So it makes sense in two sense. We are able to offer the customer a better price, AND pay our employees more :-)

Im sorry, Are you a current customer?

Thanks,

~Michael

A relatively inexpensive environmentally friendly measure that can be carried out by all businesses which I have not seen mentioned in this thread is to reduce water usage.

A good way of doing this is to install a rain water collector (perhaps on your business' roof to avoid the need for a powered pump). The rain water can then be plumbed directly into the inlet of your toilet(s). There is absolutely no reason at all why processed mains water should be used 100% of the time to flush your toilet(s)!

Of course, you may wish to leave your mains water connected to your toilet(s) via an automatic ballcock switch system so that you can still flush your toilet in drought periods.

Not only is using rainwater "green", but it will also save you a considerable amount of money on your ongoing water bills (if metered).

Thats a great idea. That could help too for the bigger corporations who have many employees. most office buildings need at lease 50-75 PSI of pressure. So you may need a pump to do this. (For the pressure based flushing toilets)

First thing is to upgrade your old servers to new energy efficient servers.

+1 for that. I don't really care about the environment but if it helps decrease the cost of power I'm all for that.

Use other sources of energy like renewable energies. Also, use virtualization & use less power consuming servers (many dell servers are doing great for this).
But basing your main source of energy out of renewable and green energy will do it.

I use 32-bit os instead of 64-bit's to squeeze more ram for my web application. Furthermore, I tune the entire LAMP stack on a single virtual machine so that it can serve more requests to avoid purchasing unnecessary vps.

I use 32-bit os instead of 64-bit's to squeeze more ram for my web application. Furthermore, I tune the entire LAMP stack on a single virtual machine so that it can serve more requests to avoid purchasing unnecessary vps.

How does using a 32-bit OS save you memory?

The size of long and void pointer are 8byte on a 64-bit host instead of 4byte on a 32-bit host, which can increase the memory consumption of the application you are running.

To test this I had two vps machines (32-bit vs 64-bit) set up with identical software. Apparently the apps on the 64-bit variants took up more memory compared to the 32-bit variants.

Instead of using second and third server for your hosting business, isnt it more "green" just to upgrade your existing first server by addin RAM, CPU cores, HDs, etc?

Instead of using second and third server for your hosting business, isnt it more "green" just to upgrade your existing first server by addin RAM, CPU cores, HDs, etc?

I think it really depends on the requirements...
I have a number of servers where i've replaced/upgraded CPU/Memory particularly for lower voltage at higher clock speed (particularly for RAM) it can free 0.5amps...

Funny you should say about CPU Cores, in most cases buying CPUs with more cores is overkill if your servers aren't doing allot. They are designed for splitting the workload over the same clock speed, which only really works for number crunching, that type of thing, perfect for Virtualisation envirnments too where allot happens in the background compared to actual VMs..

I've virtualised most of my infrastructure, halved the amount of servers I'm running, as well as the power usage and thus the rackspace. At one point I was paying for double racks just for the power allocation, only using one side of it, a very expensive practice. This is the premise of going green in my opinion....

Maybe I was not clear enough:
The scenario is that you have ONE server which is loaded enough and you need a second one to add more client on it. Isnt it more green to upgrade the hardware of the first server, instead of buying a second dedicated server?

Maybe I was not clear enough:
The scenario is that you have ONE server which is loaded enough and you need a second one to add more client on it. Isnt it more green to upgrade the hardware of the first server, instead of buying a second dedicated server?

ok, this is kind of a rhetorical question, it really depends what your running... there's only so far upgrading will get you.. If your just going to take one server and replace it, then yes upgrade your hardware... But a few extra Mhz and a couple of extra Gb of RAM isn't going to necessarily be up to requirements.

Green is a way if thinking, about getting the most out of the resources you have which in turn reduces the global scale..

- Our green data center uses less energy — it is twice as efficient than traditional data centers.
- We offset the energy that we use by investing in Texas wind power through Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).

Why go green? Because today more and more companies are finding that their customers judge the overall quality of their brand based on their response and policies regarding the environment. Promoting your green site enhances customer appeal and helps increase traffic to your site.

Why go green? Because today more and more companies are finding that their customers judge the overall quality of their brand based on their response and policies regarding the environment. Promoting your green site enhances customer appeal and helps increase traffic to your site.

While there maybe truth to that comment with the more liberal folk, the reality is for the people who take it seriously - purely a matter of money, spending money to save money or even making money...

Sure the environment comes into play on the grander scale of things, but environmental responsibility doesn't drive data centres to be efficient, operational costs do.... To say otherwise is quite simply a marketing gimmick... Microsoft and Google only build green datacentres to get the best cost for the capacity of service it gives them and to get the things approved to be built in the first place by local authorities.

I agree about operational costs being a substantial factor. But the reality of it is, there is a large segment of the business community that favors companies that have shown to be environmentally responsible. So, that leads me to the next question: what are some more examples of ways that companies go green?

I agree about operational costs being a substantial factor. But the reality of it is, there is a large segment of the business community that favors companies that have shown to be environmentally responsible. So, that leads me to the next question: what are some more examples of ways that companies go green?

Environmentally Responsible has been turned into a gimmick.. Take Carbon Offsetting for example, it's not like companies can operate off grid, so what do they do? They Give Money away to funds and "charities" that plant trees and "educate" companies on being eco so that those companies can display a logo that people associate with being Green, they don't have to do anything other than at a bare minimum give money to such organisations....

It would have far more effective if you just told people/companies going green is a cost saving and efficiency ideology - particularly in this economy, by doing a few simple things or investing in more efficiencies, it will ultimately save them money, thus on the grander scheme of things reduce the our global energy footprint.....

Another perfect example of why "Going Green" is a gimmick, carbon allowance schemes that allow countries to trade their unused allowances so that other countries like America and China can continue to function without violating global agreements.

For me, "going green" or greener, was about reducing my power consumption so that I could reduce my rackspace and thus reduce my operational costs by 60%. The initial financial outlay was relatively small because as soon as I replaced enough or upgraded enough hardware with more efficient kit in one rack at the cost of about £3,000, I had reduced power by a couple of amps and could completely get rid of another rack (mainly acquired for the power allocation) and saved myself £13,000 per year. So to me, I saved myself some green, the data centre saved a few amps reducing their costs - saving them some green, and the world is a tiny fraction greener.

I have heard of solar powered Data Centers. This seems like it would be costly but might be the green hosting of the future. Worth checking out.

I have heard of solar powered Data Centers. This seems like it would be costly but might be the green hosting of the future. Worth checking out.

Sorry, what was the point of your post?

Whats worth checking out? You didn't actually provide any examples...

the point was to share that there are solar powered data centers springing up this could well become essential for companies wanting to go green. Major companies recognize this and are exploring the possibilities:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/01/19/intel-testing-solar-power-for-data-centers/

Environmentally Responsible has been turned into a gimmick.. Take Carbon Offsetting for example, it's not like companies can operate off grid, so what do they do? They Give Money away to funds and "charities" that plant trees and "educate" companies on being eco so that those companies can display a logo that people associate with being Green, they don't have to do anything other than at a bare minimum give money to such organisations....

It would have far more effective if you just told people/companies going green is a cost saving and efficiency ideology - particularly in this economy, by doing a few simple things or investing in more efficiencies, it will ultimately save them money, thus on the grander scheme of things reduce the our global energy footprint.....

Another perfect example of why "Going Green" is a gimmick, carbon allowance schemes that allow countries to trade their unused allowances so that other countries like America and China can continue to function without violating global agreements.

For me, "going green" or greener, was about reducing my power consumption so that I could reduce my rackspace and thus reduce my operational costs by 60%. The initial financial outlay was relatively small because as soon as I replaced enough or upgraded enough hardware with more efficient kit in one rack at the cost of about £3,000, I had reduced power by a couple of amps and could completely get rid of another rack (mainly acquired for the power allocation) and saved myself £13,000 per year. So to me, I saved myself some green, the data centre saved a few amps reducing their costs - saving them some green, and the world is a tiny fraction greener.


I agree with you. We've done just that. Instead of using P4's that suck tons of power. We upgraded our customers with more power efficient servers. We also had about 10 racks of servers in our Dallas in 2008 that we converted into about 1 Rack. (Cloud Hosting) We were able to go form 10-11 208v 20a circuits to just shy of 3 power drops. In my opinion I don't worry about my carbon foot print, or paying some company outrageous fees to "offset" my carbon emissions. First thing I ask those guys that buy "offsets" is Where did you plant the trees? Where did you put a wind mill?

You just paid some farmer to plant the seed, then sell the christmas tree back to you 5 years down the road. We are in the wrong business gentlemen.

Thing is. We just have to be conscious of what we are doing. Also how much power we are using. We didn't get more power efficient servers because of the carbon we "emit" We did it to save money in a down economy. It did cost money to save money, But it paid for itself very quickly.

None the less. Bravo!

Thanks,

the point was to share that there are solar powered data centers springing up this could well become essential for companies wanting to go green. Major companies recognize this and are exploring the possibilities:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/01/19/intel-testing-solar-power-for-data-centers/

Dan, the problem with solar power is the vast amount of space needed to generate the power required for a typical DC. The article you reference talks about 100,000sqft per MW. We have 6MW in a 28,000 sqft building so covering the roof would generate maybe 0.25MW (assuming we were in California and not Iceland). The remaining 5.75MW would need 575,000sqft of land - that's about 13 acres!! And that's only good for when the sun shines, you also need another building full of batteries to get through the night!

I'm a big fan of renewable power (real power that is, not offsets), but for industrial scale 24/7 power the only options are hydro or geo-thermal, nothing else can come close for consistency and volume.

Going green is easy as 1 2 3

1.Unplug all power cords to your computer/server
2. Grab computer/server then throw out the window
3. Never use a computer/server again

Boom...there you have it saving energy by reducing your footprint = green

Boom...there you have it saving energy by reducing your footprint = green
But you just expelled all that extra CO2 from the exertion, plus fossil fuels needed for the garbage pickup to clean up the mess and all those wasted trees in payslips and envelopes, not to mention the energy used to make the new paving slab that you cracked ...