How many cows does it take to run a data centre Kavita Kukday-Deb Sunday Times of India

The answer to the question About 10,000 dairy cows should do it,claims Chandrakant Patel,director of Hewlett Packards Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab and an HP Fellow.The idea might sound bizarre,but researchers at the companys labs have actually come up with a symbiotic relationship that could help Indian dairy farmers get into the technology business.HPs project showcases how cow manure can be used to power large data centres for companies such as Google,IBM and Microsoft.There is an industry need to explore new concepts in data centre design, says Tom Christian,senior research scientist at HPs Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab,and project lead.And,while the idea of cow-powered data centres may sound esoteric,theres a lot of value to be found in challenging conventional wisdom to solve issues faced today and ten years from now. Data centres facing energy shortage As companies store huge amounts of information online,there is a constant demand for bigger and better data centres and these need a lot of energy to run.As these facilities grow in size,they require even more power to operate,and therefore,are increasingly being located near existing