Techbuyer Group Launches Interact – a Tool to Address The Reduced Carbon Agenda in ICT

Harrogate, 12th January 2021 -- Techbuyer Group, a global specialist in data centre hardware supply and configuration, announces the launch of a unique business focused on the delivery of a new and ground-breaking energy optimisation software tool, which allows the data centre industry to better address the climate change risk. The tool, which goes to market under the brand name “Interact”, is the culmination of a 2-year research and development partnership between Techbuyer and the University of East London.

Interact delivers previously unseen energy optimisation recommendations at component and system level for data centre server hardware, allowing stakeholders to reduce their carbon footprint, limit emissions, and achieve expenditure and operational cost savings. With the data centre sector responsible for a significant percentage of worldwide energy consumption – and expected to grow 500% globally by 2030 – carbon optimisation is essential.  

In simple terms, the Interact tool allows users to identify their optimal server configurations in terms of performance and energy efficiency as per individual requirements. The tool will recommend both new and refurbished options, whichever is best for client requirements. Cost savings can be enormous. A recent case study of 770 servers delivered potential savings of £200,000 in year 1 and £480,000 in years 2 and 3.

Carbon savings were over 460,000 kg of CO2 equivalent on the running costs, and much more than that on supply chain carbon. The use of refurbished machines avoids almost a metric ton of the emissions involved in mining, manufacture and transport of the new equivalent. Most of the climate change agenda focuses on use phase, but there is a growing appreciation of the importance of reuse as well.

The Interact tool began as an Innovate UK supported collaboration between Techbuyer and the University of East London. The academic supervisor, Rabih Bashroush, is a world leader in the field of energy efficiency for data centre IT hardware who recently featured on Channel 4 Dispatches.

Lead Developer and researcher, Nour Rteil carried out months of component level experiments that enabled the team to create a smart tool that analyses component and rack level server solutions to optimise cost, energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Her research has led to a paper co-authored by Nour, Rabih Bashroush, Techbuyer Group IT Director Rich Kenny and Techbuyer Sustainability Lead Astrid Wynne in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Transactions on Sustainable Computing. The peer-reviewed research outlined the effect of a declining Moore’s Law on data centre IT refresh.

“The IEEE paper represents peer-reviewed evidence that it makes perfect sense to refresh with properly configured refurbished servers for energy efficiency as well as reduced environmental footprint. This is the first time this has been done. The Interact tool builds on that with machine learning smart software to give the most effective energy and cost saving solution for IT refresh – be that through replacing existing infrastructure with new or refurbished server configurations – or through upgrading existing configurations instead ,” said Rich Kenny, Global IT Director for Techbuyer and ­Directory of Strategy for Interact.

Interact is a one of a kind tool to improve data centre efficiency, produce cost savings and reduce environmental footprint. It is the product of research carried out by Techbuyer and the University of East London, which was co-funded by Innovate UK.

Techbuyer is a sustainable IT solutions provider. Our priority is to provide excellent IT performance and unrivalled customer service. We can support your entire IT life cycle by refurbishing, upgrading, replacing or repairing your devices.

Techbuyer supplies servers, storage and networking equipment, laptops and desktops from over 150 brands including HPE, Dell and IBM. This includes Configure to Order servers and laptops which are tailored to specific IT requirements. We have over 15 years of experience in buying, refurbishing and selling IT hardware and have worked with thousands of organisations worldwide.

Press Contact: 
Charlie Collett
Tel: +44 (0) 1423 789120
Email: c.collett@techbuyer.com