OZZO: first spin-off from Green IT in Amsterdam
Last week marked the inaugural meeting of the Consortium Green IT Amsterdam Region. By pursuing a joint strategy for the ICT sector in the Amsterdam region, the consortium aims to make a substantial contribution to ensure that the city’s CO2 emissions have dropped by 40% in 2025, compared to the 1990 level.
The ICT sector is an important cornerstone of the Amsterdam economy. In particular, the many data centres in the region consume significant amounts of electricity. The ambition is to reduce power consumption and transition to more sustainable sources. ICT can also make a significant contribution to more sustainable practices in businesses, households and mobility by providing smart new applications for sustainable energy management. ICT also plays a key role in the energy sector in the sustainable and efficient generation, distribution and use of energy.
The consortium’s projects target tangible savings and the use of sustainable energy sources, generating green business opportunities that can be developed and exploited.
The first spin-off from the consortium is OZZO, an Energy Self-Sufficient Data Centre concept. Data centres consume a great deal of energy, representing approximately 6% of Amsterdam’s CO2 emissions. Because of the rapid pace of technological development that percentage is more likely to rise rather than fall. To illustrate: in the past three years, we collectively produced the same amount of data as we had cumulatively in all the preceding years.
OZZO was first presented to a wider audience during the World Congress on Information Technology which was held on 25-27 May 2010 in the RAI in Amsterdam. On the initiative of Frank Bertram (MDES) and Barry Koperberg (OPAi), several leading players in the region came together and created a design. OZZO is an ambitious project that seeks to achieve integration between IT, architecture, ecology and energy. The result: optimal data efficiency with zero CO2 emissions.
A key feature of the concept is that data are processed and stored in a network of separate nodes: a swarm of data centres that functions as a single entity. All the nodes are optimised according to the type of data, the available energy and the options for reusing the energy. Data that are used infrequently, for instance, would be stored in high concentrations on extremely energy-efficient devices.
The concept underlying data segmentation is Frank Bertram’s ‘HotColdFrozenData’. RAU Architects contributed its expertise in the field of energy-conscious building practices based on natural principles. OPAi, the knowledge and process institute working alongside RAU, provided process management and synthesis. A range of experts brainstormed on the concept in seven thematic round table sessions. They included representatives from IBM, Cisco, EMC, Capgemini, Sara, Getronics, Imtech, ICTroom, Hyteps, Sogeti, Ecofys, Groene DataCenter Koeling, ECN, Encon, and Royal Haskoning. The municipalities of Amsterdam and Almere provided financial support for the initiative. The project has now entered the prototype phase; the first Service Level Agreements are anticipated in 2015.
Source: www.rau.nl
