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Beating the Power Crunch
Just as any political scandal will inevitably be referred to in the popular press as “something-
gate”, it is now de rigeur to refer to a crisis in supply of anything as a “crunch”. It therefore comes
as no surprise that Datacentre managers are talking of an impending “Power Crunch”.
Over recent years, Datacentre power consumption has and storage resources can significantly reduce power
come under more rigorous scrutiny. Rising energy prices consumption as well as delivering other benefits.
and corporate focus on environmental issues have forced IT Computacenter’s experience suggests large-scale server
departments to look for ways to reduce power consumption virtualisation projects can deliver reductions in power
and carbon emissions. At the same time, continuing growth consumption of greater than 80%. Further, once the IT
in demand for Datacentre services and higher component- estate is largely virtualised, automation
level power requirements have exerted pressure in the and orchestration tools can be used
opposite direction. Now there is a new element to consider. to drive further power efficiency.
Increasingly, limits are being reached on the amount of For example, virtual servers can
power that can be provided to the Datacentre as a whole. be moved seamlessly between
Where previously there were very persuasive arguments to physical hosts to consolidate
reduce consumption, now there is no alternative. applications onto a smaller
physical footprint. Idle servers
Datacentres are massive consumers of power. For example, can then be powered off and
datacentres account for approximately 1.6% of all electricity only powered back on when
used in the US. However, it’s worth nothing that only demand for processing power
around 45% of the power consumed by the average increases.
Datacentre is used to run IT assets.
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There are some
aspects of basic facilities management that will help One particularly interesting development in reducing power
reduce consumption. Air-ducts, ventilation routes and consumption is tighter integration of IT assets with
raised floors are often blocked by networking and power cooling systems. One example is HP’s Dynamic Smart
cables. Blanking panels are not fitted appropriately and Cooling or DSC. DSC is a combination of hardware and
doors are left off racks after hardware maintenance software that continuously adjusts datacentre air
procedures. All these factors combine to reduce the conditioning systems, directing cooling where and when it is
efficiency of the datacentre cooling system. required. It involves deploying a network of sensors on IT
racks that monitor air temperatures in real-time. This
Anything we can do to increase efficiency of cooling and solution is integrated with cooling control components from
ventilation systems is welcome, but what if we just turn off leading datacentre equipment manufacturers so DSC can
the chillers completely? There is renewed directly control the air conditioning in the datacentre. Power
interest in Free Air Cooling or FAC; using requirements for datacentre cooling systems can be cut in
outside air for most of the time and half using HP DSC technology.
only running the chillers during hot
weather. We may complain about the Value Partners such as Computacenter identify, analyse,
great British weather, but it can be and implement technologies with customers to
the Datacentre manager’s best asset demonstrably reduce power consumption in today’s
in reducing energy bills by facilitating datacentres. Such strategic implementations will help IT
FAC for almost the entire year. FAC was departments satisfy ever-increasing demand for
once the norm and power limitations Datacentre services in the face of finite power supply.
suggest a large-scale return for new-build
datacentres.
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Source : Creating Energy-Efficient Datacentres, US
Technology adoption and exploitation also has a major role Department of Energy, Datacentre Facilities and
to play in reducing demand for power. Virtualising server Engineering Conference, May 2007
BOOK NOW!
To book your no-risk audit and assessment, contact your
Computacenter Account Manager and solve the
short-term ROI puzzle.
Alternatively, contact
hpinfo@computacenter.com
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