This new generator and cooling unit is in Bryant University’s recently opened “green" technology data center, built by IBM and APC, to meet new enrollment and data-keeping requirements.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy Bill Murphy

SMITHFIELD — Student tour guides crisscrossed Bryant University in 90-degree weather on a recent afternoon, trailing sluggish visitors across the sun-baked quad.

The school’s director of computer and telecommunications services, however, was keeping cool, his hair blowing in a powerful breeze in the basement of the international business center.

“They’re working hard,” Richard M. Siedzik said, motioning toward the powerful fans and chilled water cooling units inside the school’s new data center.

The cooling equipment was in overdrive to keep the computer servers, data storage hardware and network components from overheating. But even during peak usage on a scorching day, Siedzik said, the new data center was helping the university reduce energy consumption.

This summer, Bryant completed a $1-million initiative to build a “green data center.” In partnership with South Kingstown-based APC-MGE and IBM, the university consolidated four server sites into one, and installed new equipment from the two companies aimed at decreasing energy usage.

In 2002, Bryant was operating at least 75 servers that consumed 1,100 square feet of university real estate. The new center is 500 square feet and provides access to the same e-mail data, registration systems and student and alumni records using just 40 servers.

Bryant officials project significantly reduced energy consumption from reducing the number of servers — a process made possible by the purchase of IBM BladeCenter servers with so-called virtualization software that allows a single server to run multiple operating systems.

The school also expects energy savings from new energy-efficient microprocessors and technology that allows the servers to use less energy when usage decreases at night.

Equipment from APC-MGE, a division of the French firm Schneider Electric SA, will also help cut energy spending, Siedzik said.

The company installed sleek 7-foot tall black metal storage racks with individual fans and cooling units outfitted with heat and humidity monitors.

Instead of blasting cool air throughout the room, the separate cooling units respond to small temperature fluctuations in particular storage compartments.

“We had plenty of cooling capacity,” Siedzik said, “but we couldn’t direct it to the spots that needed it.”

In all, Bryant hopes to reduce its energy usage for data storage by 35 percent, saving as much as $20,000 a year, according to Arthur S. Gloster II, the vice president for information services.

The technology is relatively new, and APC-MGE and IBM have been promoting the Bryant project to potential customers of what IBM markets as a Scalable Modular Data Center, Siedzik said.

In the month since it completed the project, Bryant has hosted tours of the chilled and humming data center for IBM employees, as well as APC-MGE corporate customers interested in its InfraStruXure equipment. (In addition to the computer racks and cooling equipment, APC-MGE provided Bryant a back-up diesel power generator and a chilling unit installed behind the John H. Chafee Center for International Business.)

Tim Willeford, an IBM spokesman in New York, said Bryant is one of the first customers for its Project Big Green.

“They are on the leading edge of technology for their students and faculty,” he said, “while also being environmentally responsible.”

For Bryant, the project is part of a multiyear initiative to establish a reputation for the innovative use of technology in education.

University President Ronald K. Machtley hired Gloster in 2002, at a time when individual academic departments still operated their own servers in “computer silos,” hiring student interns to manage Web pages, surveys and even primitive e-mail systems, Gloster said.

In the summer, the major server centers required portable cooling units, while the decentralized servers operated at fractions of their capacity, Gloster said.

“We were really running behind technologically,” he said.

Though the new data center project moved slowly due to financing limitations, Gloster said, Bryant has made several other advancements in information technology in the past five years.

Since 2002, every Bryant student has received an IMB laptop from the university. Every two years, the Student Laptop Program provides a new model.

In 2004, Bryant installed VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, equipment in every dorm room, allowing students to make free, unlimited calls within the United States. Students are given digital voice mail and roommates get distinctive ring tones through the VoIP program.

Using the school’s network, a student can also forward his calls to his laptop and answer a call with a headset while lounging on the quad, accessing the Internet through the school’s wireless network, established in 2004.

Machtley “hired me with the idea that we would put the institution on the map technologically,” Gloster said. “Everything has changed now.”

bgedan@projo.com