Going Green at What Cost?

A recent Pike Research study claims that widespread implementation of data center best practices and green initiatives could significantly lower related carbon dioxide gas emissions (“Green Data Centers,” Pike Research). “Greening” the data center has become a popular solution for companies looking to reduce cost as well as demonstrate corporate social responsibility – but what is the price your company will pay?

According to a study sponsored by The New York Times, in 2010 data center power consumption from servers, storage, communications, cooling and power distribution equipment accounted for between 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent of total electricity use in the United States. The Pike Research study asserts that if current trends continue for several years, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from data centers will be equivalent to 1,326 million tons of carbon dioxide. Also, according to the study, energy efficient data centers using industry best practices could reduce this number by 13% to 1,156 million tons of CO2.

Greening your data center appears to be the perfect solution – you can reduce operating expense, save energy, and better the environment all at once.  But when do these efforts become more about political appearance than reducing opex, and which technologies and products really improve cooling and power distribution efficiency, and which are pure hype? At some point you have to ask yourself, what is the cost of “going green”?  Sorting through the claims of a multitude of vendors can be daunting, especially if you’re not evaluating, implementing, and managing these technologies on a daily basis.
TDS is working with these solutions on a daily basis, and we have the expertise to know the difference between solutions with real payback versus those that promise big returns but don’t deliver in the long-term. Our consultants have years of experience selecting and implementing energy efficient technologies and products into data centers.  Let TDS help you “green”; your data center in the most effective way possible.

24/7 Network Operations and IT Managed Services

Recently, a leading online retailer, whose e-commerce site was hosted at a large cloud and fully managed services hosting provider, engaged TDS for help. The existing provider did not provide a scalable pricing model that matched the planned growth of the retailer’s business and web traffic. Additionally, the “shared” hosting environment was sub-optimal in terms of application performance, and the provider was unable to meet many of the business’s custom support requirements.

TDS helped this client architect a new network, server and storage architecture and then managed the build out and deployment into a new leading “colocation” data center. As part of the transition, TDS executed a complete application/data center migration with no unplanned outages. TDS now provides 24/7 NOC, monitoring, and managed IT operations. As a result of the upgraded, dedicated architecture, combined with TDS managed services, the new operating environment is better performing and provides much more cost-effective scalability. Because TDS is not a VAR or data center lease broker, the customer was assured that our recommendations were in their best interest, as demonstrated to this client by the results they are achieving.

TDS offers 24/7 NOC, monitoring, managed IT operations and outsourced technical services to clients of all sizes and environments. We understand how to keep operations at peak performance while also staying cost-effective.

TDS is on the Move!

As we mentioned briefly in April’s Transitional Times, TDS is moving into new offices. After a period of rapid growth, we’re bursting at the seams here in our Hopkinton HQ, so, effective June 11, we’re relocating a few miles up the road to Westborough, Mass. With over 40% more space immediately, the new location also gives us access to adjoining space for future growth. Change of address notices are being included with all our invoices and other “official” documents, but please pass along our new address to other members of your team. All our other contact mechanisms, including email addresses, phone numbers and web site URL will remain unchanged.

Our new address is:

Transitional Data Services
3700 West Park Drive
Westborough, MA 01581