Can you describe how the company works and what are the main specifics of your data center?

“We set up EvoSwitch as a low-energy operation, since we know that energy consumption in datacenters is going to be a serious problem worldwide in the very near future. This is both a social and an economic problem. Power consumption by hardware continues to increase whilst the amount of available power on the market continues to decrease. In fact, research agency Gartner expects that many data centers worldwide will be unable to supply sufficient energy to their customers in the near term. We’re one step ahead of this development.

“Our investments in primarily innovative technologies have enabled us to achieve energy savings of 40 percent at EvoSwitch compared with traditional data centers. And this percentage will increase dramatically. Our calculations show that further expansion will allow us to reduce the total amount of energy consumption at EvoSwitch to possibly 80 percent. 

What is your role in the company?
I am Innovation Director and co-founder of the company. Together with a team of experts we are continuously monitoring and innovating data center technologies to be more efficient and ‘green’. 

Well Laurens, here we go to discuss green data center, can you explain what we mean today with "green data center", "green environment" and so on?

“The expression ‘green’ varies widely and according to Wikipedia it is a synonym for environmentally friendly. You could discuss about what makes a data center ‘green’. Is it using renewable energy but at the same time having a legacy cooling system? Would the use of a Cold Corridor already make you instantly ‘green’? Worldwide there is a standard that best defines the shades of green of a data center: the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).

This PUE indicates how efficiently your data center is operating. The closer you are to 1 the less energy you are using to run the datacenter. A value of 1,6 is currently worldwide regarded as the best possible number. According to our numbers EvoSwitch is already at a PUE of 1,6. When the next phase of our expansion is reached we expect to see a PUE of 1,3.

We consider a data center to be completely ‘green’ when it also operates CO2-neutral, so the operation has no impact on the environment. We accomplish this by bringing down the PUE and thus saving energy, and by using green energy but also by compensating for the little CO2 exhaust that remains by growing trees in conjunction with the Climate Neutral Group.

What are realistic energy saving options in a datacenter and which are not?

“Theoretically it is possible to put a data center in a container under water. Google recently announced that it will be experimenting with such a solution. For a carrier-neutral data center like EvoSwitch, with a diversity of customers, this is not a realistic option. The equipment stored in a data center has to be properly protected but people will always need physical access to it. I think the combination of server equipment and water will not appeal to many clients either.

“A realistic energy saving option, even for older data centers, is to implement a system such as Cold Corridor, in which cold and hot air are separated via different channels. Efficient UPS technology, such as Delta Conversion, would also be a good option for legacy datacenters. New state-of-the-art data centers like EvoSwitch can go further by installing Free Cooling, for example, in which cooling makes use of the temperature of the outside air. This latter technology provided EvoSwitch with the greatest energy saving.

“We also use a slightly higher inflow temperature, which is perfectly possible thanks to the targeted cooling and more balanced temperatures at various places in the data center. Furthermore you can take various measures in a data center to improve airflow, by closing empty racks with covering panels, for instance and ensuring the space under the floor is free of cables.

Switching to the technical side, what are the operations to make a datacenter green? Can you tell us your experience at EvoSwitch infrastructure?

“We buy ‘green power’ from a certified power supplier Delta, but we go much further than merely using green energy. Traditional datacenters use energy-wasting compressors to cool their equipment. We have equipped EvoSwitch with Free Cooling, which is a low-energy cooling concept that very cleverly makes use of the cool outside air that is abundant in the Netherlands. This reduces the need to operate the compressor dramatically.

“Another technology that we use is the ‘Cold Corridor concept’. This technology provides servers with more efficient cooling by separating the cold and hot airflows, thus preventing any ‘short-circuiting’ between hot and cold air. Positioning the servers back-to-back creates an alternately hot (back) and cold (front) corridor. The Cold Corridor is covered and closed off by a door, and the cool air supply has an obstacle-free design that improves its efficiency.

“In addition, the Uninterruptable Power Supplies use Delta Conversion, which is an innovative low-energy method provided by UPS supplier APC. This achieves savings of 5 percent in comparison with traditional double-conversion systems. What's more, the entire data center uses a HF lighting system that is operated using motion detectors. The lights are therefore switched on only if people are present in the rooms.

“Unfortunately, the emergency power generating sets cannot operate on biodiesel due to the risk of flocculation. Our primary business objective is to offer our customers a reliable and safe data center environment and we can therefore not use biodiesel. Furthermore, manufacturers of emergency power generating sets will not provide a warranty if biodiesel is used.

“Our environmental ambitions go quite far. We separate all waste flows before they reach the waste collecting services. This includes packaging of servers and the removal of redundant, obsolete IT hardware. Furthermore, we select our company vehicles according to the latest energy labels: only Category A and B vehicles are permitted. Our fleet also includes a number of vehicles that run on compressed natural gas (CNG), which is currently the cleanest fossil fuel available for vehicles. Even then, we encourage our employees to use their bicycle to come to work if possible. 

When you have an old data center and you have to convert this to a new green data center, is it possible to get in place all energy saving options?

“I would encourage legacy datacenters to improve their efficiency. They should focus on total cost of ownership (TCO) instead of only on the initial investments.
Having said that, it is quite a challenge to upgrade a traditional datacenter to the specifications of a Next Generation Datacenter. But remember that going ‘green’ will bring down the long terms costs.

“To really upgrade an existing datacenter significantly in terms of efficiency it would mean that the whole infrastructure should temporarily be brought down. And that’s exactly something nobody wants: downtime. A system like a Cold Corridor (separating cold from hot air) is fairly easy brought in place in a 24/7 environment. Upgrading UPS’s to more efficient types is harder, but I wouldn’t recommend retrofitting a datacenter with a Free Cooling system. In that perspective legacy datacenters will never be totally ‘green’. 

Talking about PUE, i know that now EvoSwitch has a value of 1.6 about that, but you think that will be 1.2 when the full 9000 m2 will be ready, so i want to ask how can you get such a low value for PUE?

“Our investments in primarily innovative technologies have enabled us right from the start to achieve energy savings of 20 percent at EvoSwitch compared with traditional data centers. The recently achieved extra 20 percent saving in energy consumption is largely the result of further investments in low-energy equipment and control systems. The expansion of the data center in 2008 also contributed to the improved PUE with a honorable value of 1,6.

I think you know that Google last month has published the PUE value of his datacenters. They report 1.21 as a PUE for one of their data centers. Can you explain how Google obtains this low value?

“Unfortunately I never had insight into the way Google manages its datacenters but I think it’s great to see that Google recognizes the need to have an efficient infrastructure. It also shows EvoSwitch is on the right track. The big difference is that Google doesn’t have external customers placing equipment in the Google datacenters; they are their own customer. EvoSwitch, being a carrier-neutral datacenter, has a variety of customers, all with different needs. Therefore Google has the possibility to achieve lower PUE’s as it controls the entire value chain. To give an example: Google can choose to install more expensive equipment that allows for a higher inlet temperature throughout its datacenter and then bring the inlet temperature up, which constitutes an immediate reduction in cooling costs. For EvoSwitch this would mean we would force our customers into buying certain types of equipment.

“Of course EvoSwitch does try to stimulate customers to operate energy efficient equipment. We do so by giving the customer insight into its energy usage per rack and by separating the power costs from the rack price. Furthermore our calculations indicate that we will reach a PUE of around 1,3 once we hit a certain scale.

Why a company today should have a green datacenter?

“Larger companies such as the Dutch currency printer Royal Joh. Enschedé are constantly looking for ways to operate more environmentally friendly. For those corporations placing their equipment in a ‘green’ datacenter is a prerequisite for achieving this goal.

“Smaller organizations are typically more focused on the reduction in costs involved of a very efficient datacenter. Having a ‘green’ hosting platform means you are reducing your energy needs and therefore cutting costs. Larger corporations, forced by the credit crunch, will also start to look into ways to optimize their IT structure. They too will be moving to more efficient and ‘green’ datacenters.

For the end customers what are the benefits? I think the cost of the solutions is higher than a not so green solution, isn’t it?

“It would be a mistake to think that a ‘green’ datacenter is more expensive than a legacy one. Energy prices hit their highs last year and they will do again in the future. The energy bill is already half of the operating costs of a datacenter. A ‘green’ datacenter like EvoSwitch is saving drastically on these expenses. It is true that the initial investment in an energy efficient datacenter might be somewhat higher than building a traditional datacenter but the total cost of ownership (TCO) is what counts. The saving on energy will pay back the higher investment. If energy prices go up again the gain will even be sooner. The end result of course is that the customer is paying less for the same service.

Does your green data center only aim at hosting providers? And for what kind of hosting providers, colo providers like LeaseWeb or also others?

“EvoSwitch is partly used by hosting providers, like LeaseWeb, but also by web designers, web and system integrators and end users. You must also realize that EvoSwitch has a lot of network providers in its data center. The total package is very appealing to customers.

One last question about cooling systems, what is your opinion about the modern systems? Which are better for a small and for a big datacenter?

“During the expansion of last year we placed a new type of Free Cooling. These coolers already are an improvement over the ones used in the first phase of EvoSwitch. Quality and efficiency of datacenter equipment is constantly getting better. Exactly what type of equipment to use when building a new data center isn’t something you can decide right away. It takes a lot of expertise of the different systems and how they co-operate as well as knowledge about the local surroundings before you can decide on the most optimal system for your datacenter. Those decisions have brought EvoSwitch where it is today.