SU Unveils Green Data Center

Syracuse University unveiled a new, state of the art, green data center today after only six months of construction. It's where the school houses all the servers that run its computer network. SU Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina says the facility is "the most efficient data center in the world."
The center is the collaboration of SU, IBM and New York State. The plan was to minimize the energy consumption of data centers - something vital in today's computing world.

"So the national problem that we chose was the rocketing amount of heat and energy associated with running data centers, something that's crippling businesses today," said Vijay Lund VP Operations and Systems at IBM.
Server systems holding data for the entire SU campus not only use energy but give off heat. If that heat can be recycled the energy that creates it can be saved.
The event Wednesday gave IBM a chance to show off it's new, energy efficient servers and computer-cooling technology and system management software.
New York State poured $2 million into this green data center. One of the green features are these liquid cooled doors that basically act like a car radiator using water to take heat away from the servers inside.
"Data centers right now use approximately 1.5% of all the electricity generated in the United States. And in the current trends of energy use it's expected to double in the next three to five years," said Frank Murray, President and CEO New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA).
The center is set to be fully operational in January and IBM plans to use it as a model of the future data centers. Perhaps the most innovative design feature is how the facility uses excess heat to heat the building environment.
The place generates its own power and can even send unused energy to the grid. The total price tag for the facility was over 12 million dollars. The center will use half the energy of a typical data center but SU officials have not said how long the center must be in operation for the cost to be worth it.