Whenever you load a webpage, your computer’s network connects to a special type of computer called a server which stores information for a website. Since the Internet never turns off, that server cannot either. It must always be powered on, even if no one has visited that website in days or even years. There are nearly 2 billion websites on the Internet today, but 99.9% of them see little to no traffic.
Still all of those servers must be powered on, which not only requires a lot of energy it also generates a lot of heat. If the servers are not efficiently cooled, they may sustain permanent damage. That is why organizations began building data centers to house their servers. Data centers are built to efficiently cool and power servers, while protecting their cybersecurity. Today about 60% of servers are kept in data centers. Data centers are largely a good thing. Google estimates that as of 2016, their data centers generated $1.3 billion worth of economic activity and have directly generated over 11,000 jobs. Additionally, data centers generally greatly increase the security of the information stored on a server. Unfortunately, even though servers in data centers are vastly more efficient than those stored elsewhere, data centers still have a significant impact on sustainability. Even with their specialized efficiency features, data centers use about 2% of global energy, about the same as the entire airline industry. Therefore, one of the most common sustainable IT efforts is to improve the efficiency and storage capacity of data centers. Some of the larger tech companies, like Google and Apple, have worked hard to maximize their data centers’ sustainability and now power them entirely with renewable energy or renewable energy subsidies, saving their companies millions of kWh of nonrenewable energy and hundreds of million of dollars in energy costs. However, most data centers are huge entities run by large corporations with billions of dollars to spare. The vast majority of data centers are small buildings owned and operated by local organizations. However, there are still many ways these small data centers can become more efficient without breaking the bank. It is essential that these measures are taken in order to keep data center energy usage from spiraling out of control.