There’s a new book out this month from Cisco IT architect Douglas Alger called “Grow a Green Data Center.” (The book is published by Cisco Press, which is a technology imprint of Pearson Education.)
The author says the book is a compilation of best practices and techniques for optimizing the energy efficiency of servers, network equipment, storage and physical infrastructure - tips and processes that he wishes he had at his own fingertips when faced with some of his own projects. “I pretty much wrote the book I wanted on my own bookshelf,” Alger says.
You can download a sample chapter of “Grow a Greener Data Center” at this link. The chapter that the publisher has been kind enough to release for this blog focuses on measuring green data centers and it offers a number of assessment systems and formula systems for doing just that. If rest of the book is anything like this example, you will find it chuck full of real examples and metrics that you can reference over the weeks and months to come. (There will doubtless be updates, as this is a field that is changing quickly.)
Alger says the book includes not just a focus on making a green data center out of an existing facility, it offers advice on how to start from scratch - from things like picking the best geographic site (with today’s remote management technology, data centers DON’T have to be right next store to your main office) to thoughts on why it is better to use a rotary UPS than one that is powered by batteries. It is basic, but also specific enough to contain at least one or two new ideas even for those of you who have been “in” this for a while. Plus many of these ideas are tried and true, which should give an IT manager more confidence about giving them a whirl.
