Sustainability Concerns Will Promote Colocation/Cloud Adoption: 2017 Prediction #2

There’s no doubt that sustainability has become a major concern in our world today. As individuals, and as larger groups, we realize that we must take proactive steps to mitigate the negative effects that many of our activities and industries are making on the planet.

In 2017, we fully expect to see that awareness continue to be raised, with data center providers looking to operate as greenly as they possibly can, while enterprises, as well as businesses of all sizes, seek out the most sustainability-conscious providers to partner with.

Data center energy efficiency is measured in PUE (power usage effectiveness). It is calculated by dividing the amount of power entering a data center by the power used to run the infrastructure within it. A typical data center today will have a PUE of around 2.5. The most efficient facilities today will operate closer to 1.5.

It’s important to remember that as the sheer amount of data our world produces increases, so does the amount of energy needed to store, move, and access that data. For a little perspective on that growth, it is estimated that the amount of electricity it took the light the entire planet in 1985 is now being used to power edge user devices and the cloud.

While there is a glut of data being produced and stored from all types of businesses, for many different purposes, most of those businesses are seeing that building your own data center for that data is an approach that is not sustainable. That’s why colocation will be an increasingly important tool in the IT department’s arsenal in 2017, and going forward

At Digital Realty, sustainability is a crucial part of our approach. We are equally committed to your long-term success as we are to the long-term survival of our planet. That’s why we pledge to create green, energy-efficient data centers that continue to improve environmental performance going forward.

Did you miss our first prediction for 2017, if so check it out here in this blog!