Greening Columbia University's Data Center

CUIT's "NYSERDA – Advanced Data Center Pilot Project" description

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Advanced Concept Data Center Pilot project will implement selected improvements in the University’s Morningside Data Center while also providing rigorous before-and-after-measurements to assure achievement of anticipated energy savings. NYSERDA has awarded the University a grant which, when matched with University funds, will finance the project. The project is closely aligned with the University’s financial, IT, E-Science and environmental sustainability goals.

The NYSERDA project will focus on updating the Data Center’s aging infrastructure design and support of High Density Computing (HDC). Specifically, it will address the electrical distribution systems to increase efficiency due to transmission losses and other areas. The project will also concentrate on sub-standard cooling practices, which are wasting cooling capacity and energy and utilization of out-of-date servers.