Sun-powered data center beats the heat

A California hosting company has adopted "green building" designs and solar power to keep its energy costs low and market itself to environmentally aware customers.

Affordable Internet Services Online (AISO) on Sunday issued a press release which details the energy-efficient upgrades it has made to the company's building and data center.

AISO is powering its computing gear entirely with solar power from over 120 photovoltaic panels. The company has also adopted a few green building techniques to reduce its overall power consumption.

The data center itself has been reconstructed using steel studs, which the company considers the best material from an environmental point of view, and the building has several layers of insulation to improve energy efficiency. It uses "solar tubes" which bring light in from the outside, creating the equivalent of 300 watts of electricity from lamps used during working hours.

AISO has also chosen to run servers that use AMD Opteron servers, which cut down on AISO's energy consumption by 60 percent.

AISO is one of handful of hosting companies that has adopted environment-friendly practices to market its services. Other companies include Solar Data Centers, as well as Sustainable Marketing and Elfonwhich both use wind-generated electriticy.