Cloud Computing Shifting To Cooler Climates

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Patrick Jobin.

Now that cloud computing is officially in the mainstream, we’re seeing a growing interest in data center energy consumption. Since electronic components are constantly becoming smaller and more powerful, data centers must now deal with the heat generated by having thousands of high-power processors tightly packed into a small space. And because cloud computing is based on virtualization, the overall utilization of this hardware is much higher than it would be in a “one box, one application” data center environment.

The problem of exponentially-growing power consumption becomes even more pronounced when you consider steadily dropping hardware prices. We’ll soon reach a point where the electricity required to power data centers is a greater financial burden than even the hardware and maintenance costs put together…

Increases in power consumption usually come in double-helpings, since the amount of energy required to cool an object is theoretically about the same as was required to heat it. So it would seem reasonable that – by creatively eliminating your data center cooling costs – you could dramatically cut overall power consumption…

Read more from the source @ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/16/where-will-the-next-silicon-valley-be/