History

The Green Data Center Alliance was started as a linkedin.com group in May of 2008.  Our intent was to see what vendors, consultants but most importantly owner/operators were doing with regards to energy consumption and cost control in the data center.  At 1,000 members we started the process of dividing the data center into 5 domains and started to create a functional board of end users to run each segment.  Our goal was to give the end user far more say in the output of our organization's efforts than traditional groups which rely heavily on vendors.  We cobbled together 40+ individuals from a wide array of industries to create an end user survey covering our 5 domains.  It did not take long to see organizing these efforts required tremendous time and resources something our small team did not have.

In a chance meeting with NYSERDA (NY State Energy Research & Development Authority) the opportunity to leverage the group's potential was finally realized.  In April of 2010 the Green Data Center Alliance (GDCA) was awarded NYSERDA's Market Transformation & Innovation Grant.  This grant greatly further our efforts while expanding our charter beyond just the data center but into the Utility  Industry that was looking to assist owners with energy reduction efforts.  Through the Grant the GDCA created the industry's first Best Practices model for energy efficiency in the data center.  Completed in November of 2010, the Data Center Energy Efficiency Framework (DCEEF) was completed with the assistance of over 80 data center owner operators.  NYSERDA pushed us to not only create the model but find companies willing to be rated against it to validate its 30 suggested remediation plans.

We are currently providing assessments for 3 Global 100 firms and will report our findings shortly.  Stay tuned for the evolution of the framework and

Today we have over 8,000 members globally