Recycling with “Green” OpenStack

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, a project was launched to collect surplus servers and personal computers from all over the country and refurbish them with new parts. These were provided free of charge to institutions in the Miyagi Prefecture as part of the regeneration project. While the initial objective was to recycle personal computers, S2 Inc found that businesses wanted their used servers to be collected, refurbished and reused. This made good sense from a business perspective as well as being beneficial from an ecological and environmental point of view.

The OpenStack cloud provides a robust foundation to enable the use of this recycled data center hardware. S2 took the opportunity to use recycled server assets when creating a new data center using SUSE OpenStack. Or, if you will, “Green” OpenStack deployment.

Established in 2006, S2 deploys data centers in Tohoku, Japan. Aside from the innovative use of recycled server assets, S2 is typically engaged in providing comprehensive IT management services to a variety of customers with unique demands. S2 is using SUSE OpenStack with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to serve the diverse use cases of its customers.

Let’s take a quick look into some of the complex requirements that S2 is faced with when deploying OpenStack for their cloud solutions:

• Optimized IaaS cloud environments
• Handle peak internet traffic while minimizing downtime or cost fluctuations
• Fast deployment of new services
• High availability infrastructure
• Avoid vendor lock-in
• Avoid “black box” services
• Withstand unforeseen disasters
• Integration with new solutions – storage, etc.

S2 is focused on building a strong foundation to meet today’s requirements but is already planning ahead for the future:

• “Highly Scalable Private Cloud” services for all customers
• “Business Continuity Planning” using SUSE GeoCluster
• Expand footprint overseas using SUSE OpenStack Cloud as the infrastructure

If you are deploying or designing private cloud infrastructure using OpenStack then above is a good checklist of requirements that you can tap into. Along with razor focus on today’s needs, an eye on future growth will keep you smiling. As my colleague Mark Smith would like to say “Think big, start small and grow fast with OpenStack”

Not to mention, SUSE is there with you every step of the way in your cloud journey. In Mr. Sudo’s (S2 CEO) words “SUSE has a global presence that we can trust to pro­vide support wherever we want to go.”

Cheers & Go Green!

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