Frequently Asked Questions

 

Why the company is named Green Platform?

Green Platform was originally formed to address the problem of sustainability in Data Centers. In 2007, when we first read the EPA Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Efficiency, we were amazed to learn that energy consumption in Data Centers was doubling roughly every six years. Our initial testing suggested that removing vibration from racks could improve energy efficiency in Data Centers. These early results were confirmed by Sun when it tested our product and determined that removing vibration from storage systems resulted in a 65% reduction in the energy required to complete a given I/O task. We could then calculate that replacing a standard steel rack with a Green Platform AVR™ could reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent of removing 7 cars off the road. We think that’s green!

 

What are the sources of vibration in Data Centers?

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), fans, air conditioning, power supplies as well as the adjacent racks are the primary sources of vibration in Data Centers. The “Vibration Penalty” impacts every Data Center but the largest and highest density Data Centers suffer the most, because vibration is cumulative.

 

Why has the “Vibration Penalty” in Data Centers been ignored until now?

Vibration has not been entirely ignored. The IT industry has traditionally viewed episodic vibration like construction or seismic events as a system failure mode, not fully understanding that short of failure, ongoing normal levels of vibration seriously degrades Data Center performance and efficiency.

• Vibration is not recognized in equipment rack design: Today’s racks do not manage vibration and many actually amplify vibration. Modern cooling strategies where the air conditioning units are attached directly to the rack actually inject additional vibration into the rack.

• Vibration is not currently factored into Data Center design: While Data Center designers understand that large amounts of vibration can lead to failure, even the newest state of the art Data Centers are not designed with an understanding of the effects of vibration on performance and efficiency.