IBM Corporation is taking its datacentre business under the Project Big Green concept to the next level of fruition by launching three new datacentre designs for the Indian market.

Launching the Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC), Enterprise Modular Data Center and the High Density Zone offerings here on Friday, Steven Sams, vice-president, IBM Global Technology Services, said that the offerings could realise energy annual cost savings of more than 42 per cent for a 20,000-25,000 square foot datacenter, which equate to a reduction of 7,439 tonne in carbon emissions annually.

With the launch of the Project Big Green's second phase, IBM GTS will target large corporate customers in India, besides PSUs, the armed forces and emergency services. "Under the Project Green initiative, it will be possible for datacentre managers to save $100,000 a year on a 4,500 square-foot datacenter," he said, adding that the company's clients in India would now have access to some of the most advanced green technologies and services.

For the typical 4,500 square-foot datacenter in India, set up on an investment of Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) with annual energy consumption of 3.5 mw, savings to the tune of $100,000 annually would more than justify the investments in new technologies, Sams said.

He noted that with the data needs of enterprise datacenters doubling every five years, it is estimated that by 2030, eight per cent of the energy on this planet will be consumed by datacenters.

"Server growth has multiplied by a factor of six, while storage needs have grown 69 times in the past decade. Roughly 67-86 per cent of IBM's clients are looking to expand their datacenters in the next 12-24 months," Sams said. "Datacenter construction costs are on the rise. It costs $30 million-$50 million to set up a 20,000-square foot datacenter, which amounts to 75 per cent of the energy costs. Even a 2,500-square foot datacenter tots up $2.6 million in yearly energy bills; hence, the case for green technologies grows stronger."

Friday's announcement of new datacenter offerings comes a year after IBM launched Project Big Green and committed $1 billion globally to deliver technologies to help clients increase the level of energy efficiency in their datacenters. At that time, the company had launched its SMDC (Scalable Modular Data Center) initiative in India, which now accounts for 25 per cent of all SMDCs deployed globally.

IBM's enterprise class datacenter clients in India include Bharti Airtel [Get Quote], Vodafone and Idea. The company has built and managed nearly 300,000 square feet of datacenter space in India.

An IDC report titled 'Assessment of Business Opportunity for Datacenter Services in India 2008', says that nearly 17 per cent of Indian enterprises faced the challenges of power conservation and cooling in 2007. The report says that nearly 22 per cent of enterprises will face these challenges by 2009.