There’s a lot of ground to cover in order to make data centers sustainable. This power-intensive industry deals with mission-critical, increasingly dense, and power-hungry deployments and applications — but impacts on the environment must be reduced. Collectively, the world of critical infrastructure is always looking to make these two realities reconcilable. However, in order for progress to be made, each and every data center provider must take on personal responsibility to make its data center environment as green as possible.

So, let’s talk about how 1623 is taking responsibility for the progression of sustainable IT right here in the Omaha, Nebraska metro.

Giving Green the Cool Factor

Every data center environment must carefully maintain its internal temperature, battling against equipment dealing with intense demands and giving off heat all the time. Cooling is a giant source of resource depletion in these facilities, accounting for one of the greatest shares of energy usage in data centers (followed by storage drives and network devices). In other words, cooling is a big challenge to be solved or optimized for data centers to handle their electricity consumption.

At 1623 Farnam, we combat this by using green fluid coolers. Located on the roof of our facility, these cooling systems help us achieve around 7,000 hours of fluid recirculation every year — that means less resource wastage.

However, beyond these on-site systems, we have partnerships in place that help us perform even better, and that’s the key to forward momentum on sustainability.

Partnerships Breed Progress

No data center is a complete silo — they depend on third-party vendors, service providers and partners to build, complete, and help maintain their environment. It’s like the old proverb goes: One finger can’t lift a pebble. This rings true as we navigate the path toward carbon and power reduction across critical infrastructure.

In Omaha (which is already an advantageous location for energy efficiency), we’ve found a great partner in OPPD (Omaha Public Power District). OPPD offers a range of sustainably minded resources and renewable options, and we happily leverage those to help reduce our impact on local and global environments.

Of course, the road to true carbon neutrality and sustainability is long, and new advancements are surely on the horizon. Still, at 1623 Farnam, we’re always on the lookout for the next great way we can improve our level of green-ness in our environments while delivering the utmost security, reliability, redundancy, and trust across each and every one of our partnerships — whether that’s with customers or partners.

To learn more about our data center, click here.