How Some Web Hosting Server Farms Are Making Their Operations Greener

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Keeping the internet going actually uses up a quite astonishing amount of energy. It is one of the biggest users of power, as far as commercial enterprises go, in the world, with the countless servers that host the sites that make up the World Wide Web all needing power to keep them running, air conditioning to keep them cool, and various other electronic resources to keep them connected.

Add to this the power used by all of the devices connecting to the internet around the world at any given time, and the power used to run the cellphone networks that let us connect via 3G and other cellular network technologies, and it's easy to see that the internet, while now vital to just about everything, is a big power hog.

Greener Web Hosting

Many companies offering web hosting are making efforts to try and make their operations greener, and to offset their carbon footprints.

This not only makes sense in terms of being socially and environmentally responsible, but also commercially, as customers tend to prefer environmentally friendly solutions. Server farms like the ones used to host websites and software services are the biggest energy users on the web, and so by working to make these sites more energy efficient the companies who own them can make a huge difference, but it also wins them customers and saves on their operating costs, so it is a win win situation for both the companies and the planet.

What Are Some Of The Ways Web Hosting Firms Are Becoming Greener?

Managing power and resources efficiently so everything works optimally using the minimum amount of power is important, and so a lot of technology is used to balance the power and the temperature in server farm sites so that no more energy than needed is being used at any given time. However, while this does make a difference it doesn't alter the fact that a huge amount of power really is required to keep things running properly, even when managed very effectively.

So, to further offset their energy usage and the resulting carbon emissions, a lot of server farm sites now plant a lot of trees around and even on top of their buildings. In some places there are also schemes where companies can buy green certificates, which means they spend money on green projects off site in order to balance out what they do on site.

The Future

All kinds of companies are becoming greener, but in the hosting industry it can have a very potent effect on how green running the internet we all rely on is. Whether it is dedicated server based hosting, cloud hosting, shared hosting or the server farms that belong to big corporations for their own IT systems, having green policies in place and trying to create a carbon neutral situation is becoming almost expected.

The web increases hugely in size everyday and predictions for energy usage to sustain the internet in two, five and even ten years are quite astonishing. Of course, as the internet grows, hopefully green power and other supporting technologies will also advance, and we will see the web posing less of a threat to the environment than it does now rather than more as time goes on.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons 
•  License: Creative Commons
•  License: Creative Commons
•  License: Creative Commons

The author of this post, Victor Brown, is an employee at NetDepot.com a company which offers managed dedicated servers. Whenever he isn’t busy, he enjoys exploring different places. He is also very fond of listening to music.