Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB), Juan Caballero,VP of IT Infrastructure and Skanska Mission Critical (data center construction/services) gave a joint presentation at Data Center Dynamics Seattle on "The Ultimate Green Move, Fix What you have first". ZERODOWNTIME magazine followed up with a print article with more details.

Robert Bellantoni, Director of Energy Services - Skanska Mission Critical

It’s not all about new product implementation in the energy efficiency race. Following a very well received presentation at the DatacenterDynamics Seattle conference in August, we asked Bob Bellantoni, Director of Energy Services for Skanska Inc. to expand on their “Fix First” concept.

In response to soaring energy costs and the immediate demands to reduce carbon emissions the Skanska Mission Critical team recently developed and deployed a Data Center Optimization (DCO) program focusing on a ”low tech” approach which is providing immediate improvement of DC efficiency and reduced operational cost.

The “Fix First” concept is based on the needs of current legacy data centers to make immediate and necessary improvements in their operational efficiency without costly retrofit, redesign or timely rebuilding options.

“The fastest way to needed improvement is often apparent and can usually be fixed with minimum cost,” says Bellantoni. “We conduct a physical audit of the as built state of their current cabinets and rack installation. Most legacy data centers are in a ‘mid-life crisis’ mode as a result of an aging design that may have been the bestof- breed at the time, but did not take critical efficiency and rising operating costs into consideration when creating the original design model.”

In the midst of the US Financial crises it is a smart move for Deutsche Bank to improve its PUE by lowering optimizing its existing power and cooling infrastructure early in its effort to green its data center.

I am amazed at how much money people will throw money at virtualization projects yet they have no funds allocated to improving the energy efficiency of their data centers.

Skanska and Turner Construction have been listed as top Green building contractors, but it is surprising Skanska has a group that will Green Legacy Data Centers as an alternative to building new ones.

Part of the bag of Tools Bob uses is thermal imaging derived from military applications to identify and document heat loses. How good are these thermal imaging devices? I found this youtube video showing heat detected from the stretching of a rubber band. Pretty cool, no hot.