Power Source

All power comes from the Salt River Project, which is a collection of Hydro-power, Wind and Solar Farms. These three forms of energy have been determined to have the lowest environmental impact while providing the most consistent and reliable energy source needed to power a data center.

Hardware

Hardware has several sub categories that are considered when selecting, to help with our green initiative:

All hardware must meet strict RoHS specifications - This not only reduces the amount of hazardous waste in the products, but also reduces the amount of waste produced in the process. 85% of all our hardware gets a 6/6 Rating. The remaining 15% gets a 5/6 Rating

Hardware is also selected based on power consumption. Our product offerings are based upon the latest most energy efficient products available at the time. This includes latest CPU Architecture, RAM, Hard Drives, etc. This doesn't always mean the fastest possible solution, but we use a performance formula to balance the needs versus the energy consumption. By lowering the amount of power our servers use, we not only lower the load on the local power grid, but lower our operating cost to keep our prices competitive.

Heat Flow - Servers can build up a lot of heat. Inefficient cases or configurations can allow this heat to build up to higher temperatures, which leads to the cooling system of the data center working harder to keep all servers at operating temperature. By using systems that have a high efficiency cooling system, the temperature of the servers stays cooler, therefore reducing the amount of heat generated by the server as a whole.

Lastly on our green energy efforts is software configuration. Our interal servers are running in a virtual environment, which translates to one physical server being able to perform the work of 4 or more servers. When these configurations can be used, they help reduce the power costs, the amount of hardware to be disposed of in the future, and the associated energy demands of one server vs four. Many of our clients use virtual environments when it makes sense for their project as well.