We know that the internet usage is increasing day by day. We cannot even imagine a day without using internet. Statistics shows that the internet usage is growing from 400 to 1000% a year worldwide. Web hosting providers consume a large amount of energy to run servers and other services such as cooling controls. If energy consumption is increasing in this rate, then by 2020, this industry will be more polluting than airline industry. 0.2% of world’s carbon dioxide is emitted by the data centers alone.
Green hosting is an eco-friendly web hosting service that reduces the energy consumption of the system.
How to implement green hosting:
1. Purchasing renewable energy credits
There are many firms that produce renewable energy. Usage of renewable energy reduces the emission of green house gases. 72,000 square feet of solar panel laid on top of a data center can produce upto 924,013 kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean electricity annually, which is equivalent to offsetting 702 tons of green house gas emissions .
2. Reducing energy consumption
Green web hosting firms need to take several measures to reduce their energy consumption. It includes:
* Use of efficient severs
Based on CERN’s (world’s largest physics laboratory) research, an organisation can reduce total power consumption to almost five times by using the latest Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers (2.46 mega watt) rather than old single- core Intel Xeon processor-based servers (11.81 mega watt). This clearly shows the lower energy consumption by efficient servers. The number of servers used can also be reduced to 1/8 of the number of servers being used now.
* Choose the best TDP
TDP(Thermal Design Power), refers to the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. Processors running with various clock frequencies are available now. The higher the frequency, the higher will be the processor’s TDP, resulting in higher performance but also higher energy consumption. If the organisation is more concerned with performance per watt than with absolute performance per server, processors with lower TDP sometimes deliver better overall value and are to be selected accordingly.
Summary
The servers which are “green” are small in size but offer excellent bandwidth and memory. They also have excellent units for supplying cooling mechanism. This is possible because they use solar and wind power for these purposes which are unlimited and cost less compared to other resources. Since they use these alternative ways of energy, they emit less carbon dioxide into the air. The traditional servers in comparison emit too much of carbon dioxide in to the air and are also too costly to maintain.
The above is a very rough outline on green hosting , if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you! 🙂
About the Author :
Greeshma S Giri works as a Jr.Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in May 2012. She loves reading books and listening to music in her free time.
When a company say’s it’s ‘green’ is it really environmentally friendly or is it trying to attract favour through clever marketing, smoke and mirrors? We care passionately about the world around us and I guess you do to as you have found and are reading this page! : ) Green hosting company.