• Sustainability continues to be a growing trend across a myriad technology industries, with its adoption in data centre environments top of mind.
• To better understand where sustainability initiatives succeed and fail, Nutanix sponsored a report which was carried out by Atlantic Ventures earlier this year.
• The report also offers guidance on how data centre operators can reduce energy consumption and costs.

Sustainability continues to be the most pressing issue facing a myriad technology industries at the moment, with organisations needing to take steps themselves given that government- and nation-led agendas like COP27 have failed to deliver any lasting plans or initiatives.

Data centre environments in particular are a focus, and with this in mind, enterprise cloud computing specialists Nutanix recently sponsored a report looking at both sustainability and data centres.

The in-depth report, which was conducted by research firm Atlantic Ventures earlier this year, aims to help business decision makers to not only minimise energy costs, but radically cut the carbon footprint of their datacentre assets.

“The current energy crisis has led to soaring energy costs across Europe, making energy efficiency and supply a number one priority for CIOs and datacentre providers alike. Events such as COP27 raised awareness of the need for businesses, across the board, to put sustainability and climate protection at the top of the strategic agenda,” highlighted Nutanix in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“However, while the majority are keen to do just that, there is little in the way of objective information when it comes to what the options are, the comparative benefits and the inherent risks of different approaches. Particularly when it comes to IT infrastructure and the datacentre, which need to be high on the agenda for organisations’ net zero plans to succeed,” it pointed out.

With datacentres being one of the worst offenders when it comes to IT infrastructure and carbon emissions, it is becoming increasingly important for sustainability to be taken seriously by operators and service providers alike.

“In EMEA alone datacentres consume over 90TWh per year with an emissions level equivalent to roughly 5.9 million vehicles (27 million tonnes CO²e). Action here can have a huge impact on climate change but has to be tempered against the need for businesses to compete effectively in increasingly digital marketplaces,” Sammy Zoghlami, SVP of Nutanix for EMEA.

“Hence this Nutanix sponsored report which examines in detail how different datacentre technologies compare when businesses examine the pros and cons of looking to achieve their climate neutrality goals,” he added.

Looking at some of the key findings of the report, which focused on traditional three-tier architectures and hyperconverged infrastructures, it found that the adoption of automation, innovative cooling systems and renewable energies can play a huge role in reducing carbon footprints moving forward.

Here the company said that measurable benefits could be achieved across a range of organisations from large scale hyperscalers and managed service providers to large enterprises and small businesses.

“In comparison to traditional 3-tier IT platforms, next generation HCI architectures could potentially reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint by roughly 27% per year,” it advised as a project of evolution that data centre providers should be looking at.

Should that happen, the report estimates that, “Across the EMEA region HCI transformation has the potential to reduce energy consumption by 56.7 TWh and cut emissions by 14.2 million tonnes of CO²e over the period 2022-2025.

A bit closer to the South Africa region, “By 2025 a full changeover to HCI across datacentres in the Middle East & Africa could potentially save 4 TWh of energy and roughly 2.4 million tonnes of CO²e.” the report has determined.

The sponsored report also had some advise for some of the local vendors, such as Teraco, highlighting here that, “Next-generation co-location datacentres could provide access to renewable energy through long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) and so contribute to an organisation’s climate neutrality goal without having to invest in CO2 certificates.”

While steps are already being taken, as is always the case, more can be done, and Nutanix is looking to datacentre providers to embrace sustainability in a meaningful way.

“The datacentre industry has delivered significant energy efficiency improvements over past decades and is now one of the most advanced in terms of both energy efficiency and decarbonisation,” the company expressed.

“Nevertheless, future energy demand will rise substantially and will result in large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions. Innovative technologies, like HCI, could create considerable efficiency potentials and have a strong impact on energy cost savings,” it concluded.

[Image – Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash]