Less energy means more bytes for the buck

Traditional data centres, which house important business and institutional data in computer servers, are energy hogs. Constantly running machinery in climate-controlled environments adds up to huge power bills.

Enter the idea of a "green" data centre and enter the National Consulting Service (NCS) Network, a national information technology consulting service with an office in Nova Scotia. The company founded a separate entity called the Green Data Centre in 2006 and is currently constructing a building for the facility in Truro. The building itself will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified while the centre will be one of the first of its kind in the country and among only a handful in the world.

Emerich R. Winkler Jr., Chief Technology Officer of the Green Data Centre in Truro, says the need for an alternative to your average data centre is two-fold. Going green offers businesses an opportunity to save money at the same time as they help the environment. "More and more businesses are looking at changing their policies and becoming more energy conscious and more socially responsible."

Winkler believes this change can't happen soon enough. Existing data centres, particularly in the United States, use so much power that they routinely cause power outages in their neighbourhoods.

For the last two years, the Nova Scotia-based Green Data Centre has been operating a test facility that has proven to the local business community that a 40% savings in power is realistic and achievable when companies agree to store their IT equipment and data in a more environmentally responsible way.

Their clients have been taking advantage of a combination of environmentally-friendly components, including high density servers, and "green" desktop computers and are pleasantly surprised to find that despite the trendy "green" label, they are actually paying less. "The savings in power directly correlates to a savings for our clients," says Winkler.

Winkler and his colleagues have been spreading the good news, talking to government, corporations, and institutions on the benefits of "greening" their business practices in order to reduce power consumption and power bills. They are being well-received in Nova Scotia and look forward to the opening of the new building in the fourth quarter of 2009.