When creating the ideal data centre
environment it is important to find the perfect balance between power and
cooling. A constant supply of power enables your IT assets to continue driving
business and is therefore vital for profit generation. Cooling is equally as
important as it keeps the equipment from overheating, but has the opposite
effect as the costs required to maintain the temperature of a data centre can
guzzle profits. Clearly it makes business sense to limit
this unproductive aspect.
Historically, the data centre industry mind-set has been ‘keep
cool at all costs,’ however the latest advice from ASHRAE (American
Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers)
suggests that data centre managers should actually increase the temperature by
as little as one degree to save power and reduce cooling costs by 4-5 per cent.
Less cooling means less energy is used and the data centre becomes a more
energy efficient environment. Unfortunately this option is still being met with
reluctance.
Another route to consider is to focus on the power aspect
of the business by turning off idle servers. Servers that are simply switched
on can generate 60 per cent of heat, meaning that many organisations are paying
to cool dormant assets.
Intelligent power distribution units
(PDUs) can monitor energy consumption, allowing data centre managers to
identify the racks that can be switched off. The best intelligent PDUs can also
tolerate temperatures as high as 60°C, whereas most standard PDUs
can only handle 45°C.
It’s human nature to be reluctant to
change, but for an industry that has researched power and cooling extensively,
it needs to get better at embracing change. While there isn’t a specific
solution that will solve all power and cooling problems, a series of small and
gradual changes will help. As the saying goes, ‘if you search for something
new, you might find something better.’ So what have data centre managers got to
lose?
This
post was written byEddie Desouza,
Global head of marketing and communications, Enlogic http://www.enlogic.com/
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