Daimler Wins Green Data Centre Award

Who has the greenest data centre of all? Well according to the 460 delegates at the Gartner Data Centre & IT Operations Summit last month, it is car giant Daimler AG.

Daimler was chosen as the winner of the first ever Gartner Green Data Center Excellence Awards 2010 in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

According to the analyst house, the award “recognises world-class Green IT initiatives within data centres.” Apparently the applicants were selected based on their “dedication to sustainable IT, the effectiveness of their solutions, the comprehensive nature of their approach, and the innovative and unique nature of the efforts made.”

Three Finalists

Whilst Daimler was selected as the winner, the two other finalists was the Grand Prix team Renault F1 and as well as the local council of the London Borough of Hillingdon.

All three finalists were selected by a panel of Gartner analysts, and then the shortlisted organisations presented their projects to more than 460 delegates at the Gartner Data Centre & IT Operations Summit 2010 on 22 November.

The audience voted on which finalist demonstrated the best example of green data centre excellence.

“Daimler stood out because its project combined scale and an approach that had been ingrained into the organisation, with clear metrics to demonstrate success and a significantly wide scope to their initiatives,” said Dave Cappuccio, chief of infrastructure research at Gartner. “We also recognised ingenuity in using alternative energy sources around the management of Data Centres.”

Renault F1 meanwhile had apparently gained attention from Gartner analyst by “going beyond the usual power and cooling challenges, and putting its data centre into a subterranean building. The company also recycled materials, changed the way its buildings were lit. It also acted with consideration for flora and fauna at the site of the centre.”

Hillingdon Council was apparently considered as an exceptional candidate as a result of its efforts to manage virtualisation, storage and cooling projects on a carefully controlled budget. It also made a substantial effort to train employees on how to communicate the value of ICT to the rest of the organisation.

Gartner plans to conduct a similar award scheme in the United States in December. More information can be found here.

Power Consumption

The awards are interesting as Gartner has previously published its list of priorities for CIOs in 2011 – and it seemed that green data centres had dropped off its list.

In the Autumn the analyst company made waves when it said that that energy-related costs account for approximately 12 percent of overall data centre expenditure. It warned companies to focus on controlling the energy consumption of their servers and IT equipment.

This echoed another warning from Gartner back in May this year, that data centres are set to face a rapid rise in problems associated with power, cooling and space, thanks to the new generation of high-density equipment.

All of this comes at a time when critics say that the EU code of conduct for data centres is failing to engage the industry.

The code is voluntary, and has faced persistent criticism over the small number of organisations that have publicly embraced it. Some have  argued that unless more people adopt it, it may have to be embodied in mandatory regulations.