POWER ELECTRONICS
Powering modern data centers for the cloud
Gary Edmonds, Director System Engineering at Flex Power Modules explores the trend towards cloud computing, networking security issues and the need for hyperscale computers
loud computing is one of the things in life that often appears to ‘just work’ – and we only notice when something goes wrong. But all of the magic has to happen somewhere, and there are, of course, a fleet of data centers where all the cloud services are running.
C
Gartner says that cloud computing is the ‘new normal’, with the COVID-19 pandemic giving it a further boost. End-user company spending on public cloud services is expected to total $304 billion in 20211. IDC quotes similar figures, with a 24 % annual growth rate.
The data centers providing cloud services typically run 24/7, and users expect them to be constantly available. For the big providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, minimising downtime is a key competitive advantage. In practice, this often means running two data centers in an ‘active-active’ configuration, with the backup systems ready to go immediately if there’s any problem at the main site, or even moving to a three-data-center topology.
At the same time, security threats continue to grow – creating an increased need for proactive, ‘always-on’ protection, as well as more demand for backups that can be available quickly. Running anti-virus and threat protection software, as well as encryption and decryption, all add to the load on servers.
Figure 1: Modern data center racks
The performance of the servers and storage in the data centers is increasing, and there’s a demand for more compact systems that reduce the floor space needed, and hence cost. This trend towards smaller, denser IT means power systems must also be as compact as possible – while maximising efficiency to keep power and cooling costs down.
Figure 2: Flex Power Modules’ BMR474 digital PoL DC-DC converter
In fact, the overall power consumption of data centers has stayed broadly constant over the past few years, as efficiency improvements have balanced out the performance increases. For example, virtualisation has meant that CPU, memory and storage are much more effectively utilised, and less power wasted on under- used equipment. While some estimates are that data centers use as much as 12% of the UK’s electricity4, the global figure is often put at somewhere between 1 and 2% - with a correspondingly huge issue in terms of CO2 emissions.
Power system architectures We’ve established that there’s a requirement for power systems to provide higher power outputs, while minimising the physical space they take, as well as increasing their efficiency.
Power system vendors have taken various approaches to meet these demands. Traditional data center power architectures would provide an individual AC supply to each blade in a rack, where it would be
44 JULY/AUGUST 2021
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54
