Ask the Expert
Victor Avelar is a Senior Research Analyst at Schneider Electric Data Center Science Center. Victor holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Babson College. He is a member of AFCOM and the American Society for Quality.
How to prevent virtualization from undermining power and cooling efficiency
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The biggest risk comes when you virtualize a server room without thinking through the impact on existing power and cooling infrastructure.”
Q I’m about to virtualize my server room. What risks should I be aware of?
A Virtualization is a good thing. Fewer physical servers imply less electrical consumption. The biggest risk, however, comes when you virtualize a server room without thinking through the impact on existing power and cooling infrastructure. The consolidation of lower density servers into fewer higher density host servers can result in hot spots and overloaded circuits that can threaten availability and performance.
Q Why can’t I just use my existing power and cooling equipment?
A Everyone’s base infrastructure is different. In some server rooms the infrastructure is oversized. This results in waste of energy and space and some cost savings go out the window. Also, with dynamic VMs, the risk of developing hot spots increases. The excess heat can result in premature server wear and tear or unanticipated downtime.
Q So how do I address this issue?
A Consider a modular/scalable approach that supports the new dynamic environment. UPS systems that grow in 2, 4, 10, and even 200 kW increments have been available in the marketplace for some time. Power distribution units (PDUs) are also available in sizes matched to scalable UPS frames.
Cooling equipment can scale using variable speed technology both in bulk cooling and air distribution. A pod deployment approach is one of the best ways to support a virtualization and consolidation project. For targeted areas in a data center, a single pod provides power, cooling, air containment, and management to ensure reliable operation with no hot spots.
For more details download our free WP #118, “Virtualization and Cloud Computing: Optimized Power, Cooling, and Management Maximizes Benefits” 1. Go to
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