[LINK] Data centre strategy may overload electricity grid

[Tom Worthington]

At 10:22 PM 1/10/2008, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
><brd>This "consolidated approach to data centre management" was what started
>the whole of government IT outsourcing push that ended in tears ...

Hopefully we have learnt how to do things better since then. But 
perhaps all of those who learnt have left the public service? ;-)

>Data centre strategy may overload electricity grid Fran Foo 
>September 30, 2008 Australian IT
>http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24423993-5013040,00.html ...

Obviously if you took 50 large data centers and put the equipment 
from them in one very large data center you would have power 
problems. But I doubt that anyone in Canberra is silly enough to propose that.

Putting all the equipment you have in one place does not reduce costs 
or increase efficiency. You need to reduce the amount of equipment, 
by consolidating it. This reduces the cost and power requirements. 
All of the equipment need not be at one physical location.

A consolidated system for the Australian Government would need about 
one tenth the electrical power of the existing facilities. If there 
was some rationalization of the applications, it would come down to 
about 1% of current power use. The system would be at several 
locations for security and reliability reasons, in Canberra, and elsewhere.

If you want to know how to do this, you can read my blog, or wait for 
me to finish writing the training course. ;-)



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University