University of St Andrews data centre receives top CEEDA award from BCS

3rd January 2013

University of St Andrews has achieved a gold award for its data centre under the Certified Energy Efficient Datacentre Award (CEEDA) programme from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. The data centre was designed, built and maintained by EAUC Company Member Future-Tech. They are very pleased and proud to have been involved with this project and for it to be given such a prestigious independent accreditation.

Steve Watt, the University of St Andrews’ Chief Information Officer said,

“We are delighted to have achieved the gold standard in our BCS CEEDA assessment. Being the only UK educational establishment to achieve this is a very positive reflection on the skills, expertise, and professionalism of all of the team within IT Services at the University of St Andrews.”

CEEDA provides organisations which are operating data centres with an independent assessment and verifiable evidence that their data centre is following energy efficiency best practice. The CEEDA assessment is based on globally recognised best practices in data centre design, engineering and IT infrastructure, monitoring and management and has been developed in line with the EU Code of Conduct for data centres.

The University was able to use their Salix Revolving Green Fund to increase the energy efficiency elements of the data centre UPS (uninterruptible power supply), free cooling and virtualisation of servers. The additional investment the Salix fund supplied helped ensure the most energy efficient solutions were delivered, with paybacks less than 3 years.

The data centre, which is a recent construction (Sept 2010), features the latest energy efficiency design measures. The ongoing efforts by facilities and management show that they work to fully comply with, and go above and beyond, the EU Code of Conduct and CEEDA. The auditor commented that “the University’s commitment to energy efficiency and carbon reduction is clear to see, and it is refreshing that the performance of the company data centre is seen as important within senior management.”

The assessor commends the University for procuring 100% of its energy for its data centre from renewable sources. Evidence was found of a strong commitment to teamwork between the various departments running the data centre, with regular meetings including all departments.

University of St Andrews is the fourth organisation to have its data centre accredited through the Institute’s CEEDA programme; and the second to achieve the gold standard.

Martyn Lambert, Director at the Institute explains: “I am delighted that we are able to accredit University of St Andrews’ data centre with the highest award possible in our CEEDA scheme. I am particularly impressed with the University’s dedication to energy efficiency best practice within the data centre environment and its use towards its overall carbon reduction goals.”

Full details about CEEDA can be found at www.ceeda-award.org
View more information about Future-tech in the Green Directory

St Andrew’s University talk about their new energy efficient data centre