By mid-year, the company was testing and installing more efficient power strips, installing a new CRAC unit and PDUs to support consolidation of disaster-recovery efforts. Thirty older and less efficient servers were shut down and a motion sensor lighting system was installed.

The next phase, which was completed by the end of 2008, included an updated airflow study to gauge the results of the changes made over the previous nine months, which confirmed critical hot spots would not occur even if a CRAC unit failed. Air channels around the server cabinets also were removed resulting in a 20 degree temperature drop on the hottest rack in the data center. And finally an energy efficiency study was completed with the local power company.

Lowder said the benefits keep showing up in different places.

"Our times between disk failures has dropped and we are attributing that to the temperature drop" in the data center, he said. Lowder said one important lesson learned is that IT and the facilities team have to work together. "Don't assume all facilities people have operated data center HVAC," he said.

And IT is now a featured participant in the company's green initiative, which includes a chief sustainability officer. Now the attention is turning to reducing copy and fax usage, power management strategies, and green equipment disposal.