Internode to construct 'green' data centre

According to Internode Group General Manager Patrick Tapper, Internode is already exploring the solutions currently available on the domestic and international markets.

“It is early days yet, but Internode is examining a wide range of options, from purchasing 'green' power to innovations such as using winter air to cool the data centre,” he said.

While a green data centre will probably be more expensive to build, it is also likely to cost less to operate than a conventional centre.

Internode already operates a number of purpose-designed data centres which include state-of-the-art networking, security and fire suppression systems.

Internode currently operates two data centres that take care of its core routing, switching and server functions. This would allow for the catastrophic loss of an entire centre without significant service disruption.

The company also leases out space in these data centres for corporate clients.

“An increasingly number of businesses, from SMEs to large corporate, are recognising that it is much more cost-effective to locate their servers in an Internode data centre rather than set up their own high availability, highly redundant data centres,” Tapper said.

“[Data centre] build cost is in the millions of dollars before you even talk about the operating costs. Clients have recognised that it is much more affordable to 'rent' space than to roll their own.”

Internode has also introduced initiatives designed to reduce the power consumption in its existing data centres.

For example, last year Internode began rolling-out virtualisation technology that “creates multiple ‘virtual server’ environments that more efficiently share the resources of available physical servers,” Tapper said.

As a result of this, Internode has been able to reduce its number of dedicated web-hosting servers from 11 to 5, effectively halving the servers' power consumption.

At the same time, the company's web hosting capability has more than doubled thanks to the introduction of 30 virtual servers.

Internode also boasts 'carbon neutral' status after commissioning a thorough audit of its CO2 emissions from the Australian-founded Carbon Planet.

The report identified that Internode was responsible for 3899.1 tonnes of CO2 emissions or equivalents last year, two thirds of which was due to the company's electricity consumption.

Employee transportation and the use of equipment and third party services contributed to the remaining emissions.

“By identifying the types and amounts of its greenhouse gas emissions, Internode was able to reduce or remove the effect of those emissions by purchasing 3900 fully certified carbon credit offsets,” Tapper said.

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