Urs Hoelzle's keynote at Google European Data Center Summit 2011

James Hamilton has posted his notes on Urs Hoelzle's keynote speech at Google's European Data Center Summit 2011. 

2011 European Data Center Summit

The European Data Center Summit 2011 was held yesterday at SihlCity CinCenter in Zurich. Google Senior VP Urs Hoelzlekicked off the event talking about why data center efficiency was important both economically and socially. He went on to point out that the oft quoted number that US data centers represent is 2% of total energy consumption is usually mis-understood. The actual data point is that 2% of the US energy budget is spent on IT of which the vast majority is client side systems. This is unsurprising but a super important clarification. The full breakdown of this data:

· 2% of US power

o Datacenters: 14%

o Telecom: 37%

o Client Device: 50%

What will get little press is this statement by Urs.

Summarizing: Datacenters consume 0.28% of the annual US energy budget. 72% of these centers are small and medium sized centers that tend towards the lower efficiency levels.