Inside Fujitsu's new tier-3 green data centre

Another feature of note in the new data centre is its power metering system, which monitors the energy draw and efficiency of hosted customer equipment, as well as the energy used by the centre’s infrastructure.

This information is consolidated into a software package called Gridlogix, which then calculates each customer’s consumption, cooling, power usage effectiveness (PUE), data centre infrastructure efficiency (DCIE) and emissions. Gunton said this is important for future carbon accounting and reporting requirements, as well as for effective power management.

“Most people take the power measure from the main plate,” said Gunton. “This will give them actual insight.”

The ‘basic’ equipment hosting package offered by Fujitsu measures power drawn at the customer’s whole of operations level, although Gunton said it is possible to take measurements down at the socket or circuit level if required.

Fujitsu will also use this data to offer consultancy services to customers to optimise the efficiency of what they are running.

“We’re going to meter the power, record it, show customers what their consumption and environmental burden is and offer them advice on how to reduce it,” said Gunton.

The company sees the green IT message as being a key selling point for the centre.

“I think it’s a very important message to our customers,” said Alison O’Flynn, head of sustainability at Fujitsu Australia.

“It’s around 25 per cent of our marketing message. Obviously, though, people are still conscious of price.”

Even with completion of the Sydney centre slated for November, Fujitsu is already looking ahead to another data centre it is building in Perth.

“We’re already saying we can do things better again,” said Gunton.

“For example, we’re doing a cost-benefit analysis around free cooling in Perth using the Stulz CRAC units.”