And growing public concern over the long-term health of our planet has forward-thinking corporations (as well as governments) looking at ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Clearlyimproved electrical efficiency within the IT room – the ‘greening of the data centre’ – has become a priority. APC has been in the forefront of the movement to lower the overall power consumption of data centres around the world. A founding sponsor of the Green Grid – an open non-profit organisation chartered with helping IT departments wrestle with the problems of heatcoolingenergy consumptionand costs by serving as a forum for sharing best practices – APC introduced the first practical fuel cell solution for data centre extended-run applications. (Fuel cells emit very low greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.) APC’s modularscalable solutions ‘right-size’ the power and cooling infrastructure to cut down on electrical waste. APC has long recognised that going green is good for business. Reducing data centre energy consumption is not only good for Earthit’s good for the bottom line. Why are data centres so energy-inefficient? Most IT rooms have been designed to meet the maximum future estimated power and cooling needs. Conventional thinking holds that you are ‘better safe than sorry’ when building out the data centre. This approach often comes with a high energy price tag and usually leads to in underutilised equipment and poor energy efficiency. The consequence: a negative effect on both the corporate bottom line and the environment. In a perfect worlddata centres would operate at 100 per cent efficiency. Howeverthis is neither practical nor possible. A 100percent efficiency would mean that the IT equipment used all the electricity that you put into the data centre. Typicallyonly 30percent of the electricity is used by the IT equipment. The remaining 70percent is consumed by chillersuninteruptible power supplies (UPS) systemscomputer room air conditionerspower distribution unitsand other infrastructure components. Sowhen you pay your electric bill30percent of it is for your IT and 70percent for your infrastructure. In other wordsdata centres typically draw more than twice as much power as their IT loads requireof which a significant portion can be avoided. In the futuredata centre design may be helped by efficient IT and infrastructure equipmentbut data centre managers need to improve their efficiency now. APC offers some practical tips to improve the electrical efficiency of your data centre. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Right-size your infrastructure. Use a modularscalable power and cooling architecture that allows you to deploy as needed and avoid ‘just in case’ over-sizing. This is the single best strategy for improving data centre efficiency. Savings are even greater for redundant systems.
Virtualise your servers. By consolidating your application into fewer serverstypically blade serversyou free up power and cooling capacity for expansion.
Use a more efficient air conditioner architecture. Instead of room-based coolingdeploy row-based unitswhich promote higher efficiency in high-density environments. Shorter air paths require less fan power. CRAC supply and return air temperatures are higherpreventing dehumidification and greatly reducing humidification costs.
Use air conditioner economiser modes. Many air conditioners have economiser options that can offer substantial energy savingsdepending on your geographic location.
Use an efficient floor layout. Floor layout has a huge impact on the efficiency of your data centre air conditioning system. Employ a hot-aisle/cold-aisle configuration with suitable air conditioner locations.
Use more efficient power equipment. New best-in-class UPS systems significantly improve efficiency at typical operating loads. Light-load efficiency is the key parameternot the full-load efficiency. And don't forget that UPS inefficiency losses must also be cooleddoubling their cost.
Locate vented floor tiles correctly. Data centres using a raised floor often do not have the right number of vented tilesnor are they located correctly. Correct locations are not intuitively obvious. Get a professional assessment to ensure optimal results. Locating tiles properly will also reduce hot spots.
Co-ordinate air conditioners. Many data centres have multiple air conditioners that actually undermine one another’s performance. One may heat while another one cools; one may humidify while another one dehumidifies. The result is gross waste. Get a professional assessment to diagnose and correct any such problems.
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Install energy-efficient lighting. Use more efficient lighting. Lighting power must also be cooleddoubling its cost. Turn off some or all via time-of-
10. Install blanking panels. This stratagy reduces hot spots anmd saves energy by increasing the CRAC return air temprature. New snap-in toolles blanking panels make installation easy and inexpensive.
