In today’s cost-conscious business climate, every facet of operations is under greater scrutiny as organizations look to increase efficiency and cut costs. For the U.S. government in general and the General Services Administration (GSA) in particular, this has become a mantra.
The GSA, which leases approximately 1,400 data centers located in large federal facilities to many government agencies, is under mandate to cut energy consumption in those facilities by 30 percent. In October 2011, the GSA’s STAR database for Automated Data Processing (ADP) space found that nearly half of data center energy is used for non-IT loads, such as cooling and power conditioning. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a 2007 Energy Star program report, predicted that GSA can expect data center energy use to grow at an annual rate of 15 percent, which represents a doubling of energy consumption every five years.