Argyll and Bute Council leading the way for cost-effective data storage

Datacentre - Image credit: Victor Grigas via Wikimedia Commons

Argyll and Bute Council has been recognised as one of the leading public sector organisations in Scotland for cost-effective electronic data storage.

Digital Scotland launched a tool to work out the cost of data centres compared to cloud storage or use of commercial data centres as part of a strategy for reducing IT costs across the Scottish public sector.

Argyll and Bute Council’s centres at Helensburgh and Kilmory were acknowledged as sector-leading, at a national seminar for best practice.

The council said both data centres cost much less to run than alternatives in the cloud, mainly because all servers have been virtualised.

The recently refurbished data centre in Helensburgh has one of the lowest possible power utilisation efficiency (PUE) ratings of 1.24, due to the centre’s layout with in-row cooling, which allows it to operate at a higher temperature of 22 degrees. 

Councillor Dick Walsh, the council’s policy lead for IT, said: “Reducing levels of energy consumption is something that we take seriously in Argyll and Bute and to know that our IT department are leading the way in cost efficiency is very encouraging.

“Not only does lower energy consumption result in lower energy bills but it also helps to reduce our carbon footprint. 

“Council tax payers will be very pleased to learn that they are getting excellent value for money from the council’s IT service and that this has now been validated independently. I’d like to congratulate the whole team on their efforts.”