NetFire United States
Call us: 855-MY-NETFIRE (696-3834)
Green Hosting
Sustainability today for a brighter tomorrow.
As environmental issues receive more attention, an increasing number of companies must consider our role as stewards of the natural world. As a company, NetFire is collectively and individually invested in our environment's future - we aim to promote the values of sustainability and environmentally-conscious ethics. That's why we have implemented a comprehensive Environmental Management System (EMS), based on the ISO 14001:2015 standard.
While many companies claim to be 'green', NetFire actually has the procedures to back it up - we are ISO 14001:2015 compliant, and our EMS is guided by that standard every step of the way.
Green Hosting: What Does It Mean?
With an ever-growing number of companies calling themselves “green” or “eco-friendly”, it can be difficult to know exactly what these terms mean and which companies actually fit the description. In fact, most web hosting companies who claim to offer green hosting simply don’t deliver – they just refer to themselves as “green” without offering any sustainable practices to support that claim.
At NetFire, we do things differently – we’re completely open with you about the metrics we use to shape our Environmental Management System (EMS). Here are just a few of the sustainable practices we offer at NetFire that you won’t find anywhere else.
Rackspace
Softlayer
Data Centers
Cold-aisle containment
Yes
No
No
Over 90% clean energy
Yes
No
No
Hot Row/Cold Row Cabinet Configuration
Yes
No
No
Hardware
Green Processors
Yes
No
No
Publicly-available PPW metrics
Yes
No
No
Procedures
ISO 14001:2015 Compliant
Yes
No
No
Environmental Management System
Yes
No
No
Cold Aisle Containment vs. Conventional Cooling
Cold aisle containment (CAC) is an integral part of NetFire’s EMS. It utilizes a physical barrier that separates hot and cold air, maintaining a uniform air temperature cooled to your specifications. A data center with CAC offers many key advantages over those which use conventional cooling methods, including those seen below.
Cold Aisle Containment Data Center
Energy Efficiency
CAC provides the barrier necessary to contain cold air and prevent hot air from pooling in front of your servers. In this system, hot air and cold air never mix – cold air is sealed at the front, while hot air is sealed at the back. This ensures a predictable air temperature without “hot spots”, optimizing your operating conditions while saving on cooling costs.
Space Efficiency
Data center space is costly. Because the area around the top of the rack is often impacted by “hot spots”, many data centers under-populate their racks, which increases the space cost per server ratio. With CAC, air temperature is uniform, allowing for better use of space.
Convential Cooling Data Center
Total Inefficiency
In this system, cold air is not contained, allowing cold and hot air to mix. This often creates troublesome “hot spots” that keep your infrastructure from running at peak efficiency.
Green Processors
At NetFire, we’re totally transparent about the metrics we use to ensure that our infrastructure runs on sustainable practices. One of our most important guidelines for maintaining green processors is managing and sharing our performance per watt numbers. Managing and publicly-sharing these metrics lets NetFire stay on the cutting-edge of sustainable technology while maintaining an open dialogue with our clients.
Performance per watt (PPW) metrics measure the energy efficiency of a particular piece of hardware, and are the only way to reliably measure how “green” a processor is. With our specialized low-voltage hardware, NetFire’s infrastructure delivers much better PPW numbers than hosts who use conventional server hardware; and our SSDs utilize less power than mechanical drives. There are several advantages of managing PPW metrics, including those below:
Objective Measures PPW metrics provide an objective, numbers-based approach to maintaining sustainable infrastructure. Unlike other companies who merely describe themselves as “green”, NetFire has the data to back it up.
Specialized Environment Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, PPW metrics allow us to choose the best processors to use for each application. Many of our appliance offerings utilize Intel Atom CPUs, with TDPs in the 20 Watt range.
Efficiency Processors need to do more than just get work done – they also need to do so in an energy-efficient manner. PPW metrics let our engineers more effectively balance both needs.
