Greenbang has an article on liquid cooling.

Immersing servers in liquid can be a good thing

By Greenbang on Nov 17, 2009 in Data centres, Featured

If you’ve ever accidentally spilled tea on your laptop, you understand why liquids seem like one of the things you want to keep out of data centres, not in them. But one firm says surrounding server components with water and liquid coolant is an ideal way to save energy and money.

The UK-based Iceotope launched its new liquid-cooled server technology today at the Supercomputing 2009 conference in Portland, Oregon.

“We have spent 18 months developing this technology in stealth mode, with input from a number of interested customers,” said Dan Chester, CEO of Iceotope. “We believe that we will see a huge growth in the use of liquid-cooled servers as people see the ease with which these systems can be deployed.”

Iceotope claims its system is the first to use modular “liquid immersion” of server components and can reduce data centre cooling costs by 93 per cent. That’s no small feat when you consider a data centre with around 1,000 servers can spend more than $260,000 a year on air cooling systems.

The claim of 95% savinsg is mentioned on their web site.

Because of the greater thermal efficiency of this “end to end liquid” cooling path, the building water circuit can be run much warmer – potentially eliminating the need for chiller plant and enabling year-round free cooling. With this approach, the 3 year cooling cost of a 1 megawatt data centre could be reduced from around $788,400 to around $52,560; a 93% ($735,840) reduction compared to air cooling. By enabling servers to be packed more tightly without compromising the cooling efficiency, the same approach could reduce the space required for the servers by 84%.

I am amazed companies make claims like the above without any transparency on how they came up with these numbers.

Network Computing India has an article specifically on efficiency in the data center.

Cover Story

On a High Efficiency Curve

Increasing power, cooling and real estate costs are pushing CIOs to squeeze out more efficiency from their data centers

By Varun Aggarwal

Increasing awareness and computerization is propelling the growth of data centers in the country. Gartner predicts that the total data center capacity in India will reach 5.1 million square feet by 2012, growing at a CAGR of 31 percent. This is partly fueled by the fact that India is expected to be the data center hub for markets such as the Middle East and South East Asia. There are also instances of European customers opting to host their data centers in India.

Green data center is discussed.

Painting the Data Center Green
Green is the new mantra, and a host of organizations in India are exploring every possibility of saving on energy costs. Says Sanjeev Gupta, Service Product Line Leader, Site & Facilities Services, IBM India/South Asia, “As hardware purchases go up and organizations deploy high-density computing and network storage for mission-critical applications, there is an immediate impact on energy consumption for IT resources. This further impacts the need for implementing environments that ensure high performance levels and longevity of the server and storage environment, leading to the demand for ‘Green Data Centers’.”
In a tropical country like India, companies mainly rely on air conditioning units to keep servers at the right temperature. The more powerful the machine, the more cool air is required to keep the machine from overheating.

To meet these challenges, data centers have undergone changes in design to accommodate rapidly changing server technologies over the past 5 to 7 years. Servers that used about 150W power and 4 to 6 RUs of physical space are now replaced with servers using 3kVA in 8 RU space. This has necessitated radical approaches for supplying power and cooling requirements to such high-density racks.

More and more I am seeing green discussed as a benefit of cloud computing.

The impact of cloud computing
The latest buzzword in the industry today is cloud computing. This is essentially because it has the potential to completely revamp the way an organization works. According to IDC reports, cloud computing is reshaping the IT marketplace, creating new opportunities for suppliers and catalyzing changes in traditional IT offerings. This will have a tremendous impact on the way data centers are built today, and in the future.
Analysts believe that with the advent of cloud computing, efficiency levels in data centers will go up significantly.

InfoWorld has an article discussing green data center features to lure tenants.  One good part of the colocation providers like Fortune and Digital Realty Trust promoting green features is more people will be thinking of how their company owned datacenters should be green.

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

Datacenter operators dangle green benefits to lure tenants

Providers share their energy-efficiency secrets and link them to cost savings

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Hardware vendors aren't the only organizations out there touting their green credentials to lure customers. Companies specializing in building and operating datacenters, both for individual and multiple tenants, are increasingly trumpeting the energy efficiency and eco-friendliness of their facilities. These traits not only appeal to the "save the planet" sensibilities of more environmentally conscious decision makers but to cost-conscious decision makers as well.

Among the datacenter operators celebrating green achievements is Fortune Data Centers, which recently earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification for an eight-megawatt facility in San Jose. By building and developing the facility with energy efficiency in mind, Fortune Data Centers asserts it will enjoy long-term cost savings that will be passed on to its tenants.

[ Learn how datacenter operator Digital Realty Trust transformed an old printing press into a LEED-certified datacenter. | Like green datacenter operators, companies find that green IT premiums are worth the cost. ]

"We're structuring our business so that customers can enjoy the benefits of LEED-certified datacenter space without paying a premium for it," said John Sheputis, CEO of Fortune Data Centers. "We believe companies shouldn't have to pay extra for energy efficiency; rather they should realize a reduction in costs."

The green data center topic has even reached the broadcast TV market in TV Technology’s article.

The 'Greening' of the Data Center

by Karl Paulsen, 11.10.2009

ALEXANDRIA, VA.
A fascinating change is occurring in the IT and data center space that may be extending into the broadcast space given thoughts of hubbing or distributed operations. The emerging concept of the "cloud" is possibly the most prominent trend in the IT industry, with at least one rationale being the "greening of the data center."
Today's growing focus on both green-IT and the cloud is more than just a trend fueled by the watchful CFO eyes. It is clear that green philosophies must be worked into all future business models. An example of approaches to greening up the broadcast facility was previously covered in "Looking Toward the Green Blades of Servers," (Dec. 2, 2008), where I pointed out that many facilities now employ a plethora of discrete PC-based workstations as utilitarian components or communications interface buffers. If the broadcaster looked to blade server technologies for those simpler utility-grade applications, the number of PC-workstations could be boiled down considerably. Blades emphasize compactness and reliability while reducing the physical and the carbon footprints left behind by employing efficient power, cooling and product consolidation.

In a somewhat yet-to-be-recognized outcome, the broadcast server marketplace has adopted a similar attitude through the use of more efficient storage components, consolidation of channels, and improved encoding/decoding system architectures. Over time, a huge reduction occurred in the physical space requirements for both storage components and video serving engines while simultaneously realizing increased performance and storage capacity many fold. Manufacturers have taken a serious look at the green issues in their products, but surprisingly have yet to make it major thrust in their marketing "green," like their data center counterparts have.

Specific broadcasting equipment is mentioned for energy efficiency improvements.

For an historical example, the original Tektronix PDR100 took 5RU of space for four channels and included eight 4 GB RAID drives consuming 750 watts total power. The PVS1000 system took 6RU, plus 3RU of RAID for 8 channels and consumed 430 watts. Adding additional drives in an external array drove the total power consumption to 822 watts. Through evolution, this product line became the Grass Valley K2 platform—taking only 3RU for four channels and a power draw of 500 watts (with 10 internal 300 GB HDD). The newest K2 Summit takes up 2RU and consumes about 300 watts.

Harris' Nexio AMP platform evolved by adding feature sets in a like-chassis footprint, thus improving the green impact from both the space and power consumption perspective. Nexio, originally ASC, then Leitch, was not unlike Tektronix which became the Grass Valley Profile in their concepts of integrated drives and serving engines. Through evolution we have seen these platforms migrate from self contained to discrete components, and then back to self contained products again. Efficiencies gained are dependent upon many undercover green initiative byproducts.

Note this article for TV Technologies was written by Azcar Technologies, a television broadcasting solution provider.