Keysource and the University of Leicester have been recognised by the Uptime Institute’s Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards. They were joint finalists in the Facility Retrofit category for the design and build of a high-efficiency data centre capable of supporting the high densities associated with High Performance Computing (HPC) to host specialist IT services for researchers.

The GEIT Awards showcase organisations that are pioneering energy-efficiency improvements in their IT and data centre operations. This year over 100 organisations from 23 countries participated in the 2012 GEIT Awards that highlighted some of the most advanced facilities and developments the judges have seen to date.

Keysource developed the data centre with a new cooling solution, which has enabled the University of Leicester to achieve a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of just 1.19. When compared to running the current IT load at the old efficiency of 2.35 PUE, the data centre offers annual cost savings of £152,000 and a reduction in CO2 emissions of around 739,000kg.

Rob Elder, Associate Director of Keysource commented: “Being recognised by a prestigious, international award such as this, along with global businesses such as Facebook, HP Enterprise Group, eBay and Dell, is a great achievement for Keysource. It demonstrates our ability to develop highly efficient, cost effective and industry leading data centres that support modern IT systems and are resilient to future needs.”

Dr Chris Rudge, Research Computing Services Manager of the University of Leicester commented: “Working in partnership with Keysource, we have developed a facility which enables us to offer significantly enhanced services to researchers whilst minimising the carbon footprint. The new HPC service, which this refurbishment was needed to support, enables the University to continue to produce world class research. This recognition from the GEIT Awards underlines the considerable hard work and commitment that has been undertaken by both organisations, enabling us to achieve our operational objectives.”

The GEIT Awards’ main objective is to educate the data centre and IT industries in effective ways to reduce energy and resource consumption by highlighting innovation and best practices.

ENDS