Consumers are increasingly thinking green when making purchasing decisions, a trend that extends to Internet services as well. While the push for green data centers is driven by the economic benefits of energy efficiency, many consumers are motivated by environmental concerns. Marketing "green web hosting" is not entirely new, but seems to be gaining some traction. Today Mark Ontkush at EcoIron takes a look at strategies for green web hosting, which typically focus on two approaches:
One group buys Renewable Energy Certificates; these insure that the power they use is generated in an ecofriendly manner. This is typically wind or solar, but it could also be biogas or geothermal as well. Dreamhost is in this category. The second group actually generates their own power directly from renewable energy; AISO, for example, is in this category; they are 100 percent powered by solar that they generate themselves.
EcoIron is a great source for news about green computing and sustainable IT. One sign of the growing interest in the subject is the growing readership for EcoIron, which just entered the top 5,000 at blog authority service Technorati. If you're already a Technorati user, you can now add Data Center Knowledge to your favorites list.
