The data center reliability-sustainability paradox

Johanna Flood

Imagine never being able to rest. Ever. Not even a second. That is the reality of a data center.

Data centers need power all the time, 24/7. Only a few seconds of blackouts can lead to costly failures for both operators and users.

To ensure this, clients set strict uptime requirements in their contracts, often expressed as  99,9%. If these levels are not met, penalties follow.

To meet these perfectionistic demands, data centers have extra systems when one fails. Like two power lines, batteries, and backup power. Both hängslen och livrem as we say in Swedish (meaning both braces and belts, or to be on the safe side). The higher the up-time is for the data centers, the more extra equipment they have.

But this reliability comes at a cost. The more redundancy a data center has, the more equipment and materials it requires, potentially increasing its environmental footprint.

In the following articles, we will explore how data center equipment and this redundancy affects the environment and people, and if we can find the sweet spot between sustainability and reliability.

What is data center sustainability?

In an era where AI is making data centers mushroom and the energy use from digitalization will multiply over the next years, how can data centers be as sustainable as possible?
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deep dive

The building blocks of data center and their sustainability risks

Best tips to select UPS for sustainability

UPS – the first aid for power failure

Servers are a bit picky. They need steady, clean electricity to work properly. All the time. When power fails, UPS come in to save the servers.

Why UPS save servers but may harm nature. Read more here!

Best tips to select gensets for sustainability

Generators – intensive care during black out

If the power cut lasts longer, backup generators start up automatically after a few seconds. The UPS keeps everything running in the meantime.

The generators then take over and run until stable grid power returns—like intensive care for the data center.

Check out our recommendations for generators with minimum damage on the planet (soon to be published).

Ensure cooling which keeps the planet cool

Cooling - keeping the servers from over-heating

Every watt that goes into a server eventually turns into heat. So, a data center is basically a giant heat generator with some computing on the side.

Cooling systems remove that heat, so everything keeps running instead of melting.

Learn more about how you can ensure that cooling your data centers doesn't heat up the planet too much (Soon to be published).