Servers attached to solar panels and windmills?
A. Not quite. At this time, truly sustainable datacenters are still mostly myth, and what there are of them are owned outright by a single company, such as the IBM datacenter being developed in Switzerland that will heat a public swimming pool. Even this major innovation in data centers will not run entirely off of renewable energy. Consider how difficult it would be to harness enough renewable energy local to the data center – enough to run all servers and cooling systems with total reliability – when ideal datacenter location is dictated by redundant crossing internet backbone connections that rarely exist in geographical locations where the most renewable energy is produced. However, as we grow, we are constantly looking into new possibilities and developments in this direction. In the mean time, we will continue to purchase renewable energy credits that subsidize the higher cost of renewable energy for families and businesses that are local to its production, as well as helping to
