Servers can consume 30% of a business's energy

In-house data centres can be responsible for as much as 30 per cent of a company's energy consumption, it has been claimed.

And, according to Bill Arnaud, chief research officer at Canada's Advanced Internet Development Organisation, new legislation on green energy could push up the cost of running a data centre substantially – something which could soon be a problem in the UK as the government strives for a carbon neutral economy.

Meanwhile, Duncan Campbell, Hewlett Packard vice-president, said that adding in the cooling costs for server rooms and IT costs can soon account for half of a business's expenditure on energy.

He claimed that as the cost of energy increases, firms have the perfect opportunity to reconsider their IT infrastructure, in the hope of reducing costs.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced it was looking into reducing its carbon footprint by using clean energy at its data storage facilities.

Meanwhile, IBM said that the biggest challenges facing the web hosting and data storage sector were energy consumption and capacity.

Written by Tim Dunton