One of the leading providers of green datacentre technologies in the US, Rackable Systems, has revealed plans to launch operations in Europe as it seeks to tap into expanding demand for energy efficient server systems.
Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Rackable Systems' recently appointed managing director for the region, Rod Evans, said that the company would open an office in the UK in the next few months and then look to open a second office in northern Europe in late 2009 or early 2010 before expanding "quite extensively" across the continent.
"A lot of the momentum for green IT has come from northern Europe in recent years and while we have a reasonable presence in Europe through our US customers, the time is right to address more opportunities in the region," he said, adding that the company was already in early stage talks with a number of European customers, including the Dutch government.
Rackable Systems specialises in providing energy efficient datacentre technologies and services to firms, and has recently launched a range of systems that it claims will offer significant energy savings over its competitors.
In particular, its recently launched CloudRack C2 server rack has been designed to automatically target the fans in the unit so that they are only used when required and also features a single direct current (DC) converter that serves to enhance energy efficiency and reduce cooling requirements.
"Virtually all IT equipment runs on DC, but most AC to DC converters are 80 per cent efficient at best and you get one for every server in a rack," explained Evans. "Our design converts AC to DC as it goes into the rack so there is only one converter and it is 99 per cent efficient – that means less heat and greater reliability."
He added that the company estimates that overall a full rack cuts energy use by between 20 and 25 per cent against comparable rack technologies.
Rackable also offers a modular self contained datacentre similar to the " datacentre in a box" systems also offered by IT manufacturers such as IBM and Sun Microsystems.
Evans said the company's ICE Cube "containerised" datacentre had been optimised to offer energy savings of between 50 and 80 per cent compared with conventional datacentres and could also be deployed quickly in a range of different environments.
He added that talks were at early stage to potentially deploy the technology at locations in the Netherlands where the unit could be powered using energy from wind turbines or waste power from the country's giant greenhouses.
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