Today HP unveiled its new flexible datacenter, which they claim will not only cut upfront costs in half, it will lead to a projected 14 percent decrease in carbon footprint. As the release noted, this new center which is still awaiting full patent, “offers a standardized, modular approach to designing and building data centers that allows clients to replace traditional data center designs with a flexible solution that can be expanded as needed while conserving resources.”
As Kit Godrich, CTO of Technology Services at HP told CTOEdge this week, “while HP has standardized the physical design of the data center shell, HP offers the customer the option to efficiently customize the final configuration for different power levels by using modular UPSes. Moreover, they can choose from four types of cooling systems designed to be most efficient for different climates, mostly using outside air economizers for primary cooling with DX cooling units (not chilled water) as backup on warmer days.”
Some are suggesting that HP’s shift in data center design marks the beginning of a trend to simplify such designs in order to realize as-of-yet unseen energy efficiency goals. This would certainly upset the trend of mega-datacenters, which do not appear to be going away anytime soon as each day brings news of datacenter expansion and new construction. While there are increased “green” datacenter efforts underway, these remain the anomalies—if HP can prove its claims, however, this might be an attractive option, unless, of course, you’re living in the state of California—where HP is based, by the way.