As one of the fastest growing industries, both economically and in their energy consumption, data centers have a tremendous opportunity and unique responsibility to take greater control of their use of resources inside their facilities. A few data centers, like FORTRUST, have been and continue to focus on minimizing their environmental impact by maximizing their efficient use of power and going green wherever possible. FORTRUST’s customers have peace of mind knowing that their data center is constantly looking for new, greener, more effective technologies to keep our business moving forward.
As the most progressive data center in the Rocky Mountain region, and a leader in our industry, FORTRUST saw an opportunity to provide an outstanding example of how a data center should operate and contribute to a sustainable environment. Together as an organization, FORTRUST created the “FORTRUST Sustainability (Green) Initiative” in 2011, which was a strategic plan to reduce our energy consumption and carbon footprint while encouraging our employees, customers, vendors and partners to join us in our efforts to improve our impact on the planet as well as the industry and our community. This plan set us on a path towards our partnership with IO, whose technologically advanced IO Anywhere Modules have contributed significantly to FORTRUST’s improved power usage effectiveness (PUE). The ability to deploy modular technology along with raised floor to perfectly match our customers’ of-the-moment computing demands has transformed us into a hybrid data center, which is inherently more efficient than tradi- tional, one-size-fits-all data center facilities.
Both operationally and through our design, FORTRUST has taken great strides since 2011, reducing not only our PUE enough to meet the initiative’s ultimate goal, but also creating a culture focused on being green and efficient. This paper details the steps FORTRUST has taken as an organization to reduce our impact on the environment, while growing and improving the company as a whole—a process that continues to this day.