Data Center Energy Consumption
According to data published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the electricity consumption attributable to the 18 million active data centers in the world has reached 220-320 TWh/year, equal to over 1% of global energy consumption. In Italy alone, according to Terna’s estimates, IT systems annually absorb something like 300 TWh, consumption that has an impact both on bills and on the company’s environmental footprint. The extensive use of information technology in company processes has led to a 550% increase in system calculation instances in the period 2010 and 2018, with a consumption growth which fortunately followed a less explosive trend, however, estimated in the order of about 6%.

Data Center Efficiency: Is It Possible?
A fact that only partially reassures us. Against the decrease in energy consumption per MIPS delivered obtained with the technological updating of IT systems (each new generation improves efficiency by an average of 20 to 30% compared to the previous one) and with the increasingly widespread adoption of free cooling in large data centers (the impact of air conditioning on the energy balance is normally equal to 50% of the total) many companies still today have no visibility into the efficiency of their IT systems.
Putting Energy Efficiency into Practice
A basic step is the monitoring of consumption, through the calculation and periodic control of the PUE indicator (power usage effectiveness) commonly used as a standard reference parameter for data center efficiency. The evaluations should not forget the IT services outsourced to cloud providers or in outsourcing paid by subscription or according to use. Although these are services based on highly virtualized and optimized infrastructures, they still have significant energy and environmental impacts.
Partners Specializing in Data Center Management Can Make a Difference
In the search for efficiency and cost reduction, the ability to know the company’s IT needs in real-time to be able to start up, but also quickly shut down and release resources that are no longer in use assumes particular importance. BinHexS has the skills to help customers with energy efficiency paths. In addition to data center updating services ranging from infrastructure design to implementation, BinHexS offers support for data center management and cloud migrations, through teams of experts, able to intervene locally or remotely, with 24×7 continuous time monitoring.