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Ten Tactics to Get More from Your Data Center with Less Money
By: Chris Preimesberger
2008-11-20
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With data volumes growing at 60 percent to 70 percent per year (Gartner's educated guess), and power costs expected to increase by 15 percent (the power industry's educated guess), how does an IT manager make peace with the very real possibility that he or she won't be able to buy as much power and capacity this next fiscal year?Where to Start Cutting Data Center Power Costs
Here's a listing of ideas from Emerson Network Power that can be instituted immediately in virtually any data center.
Cover Your Bases. It may be more difficult to recover from an
outage during tough economic times than during prosperous one. A
relatively small investment in precision air conditioning and backup
power can actually save money. For example, precision air conditioning
will adequately protect data center assets; building air conditioning
alone will not. A double conversion backup power solution with adequate
redundancy is essential to raising system availability and ensuring
business continuity.
Look Inside Before Outside. Increasing density may be a more
cost-effective approach to meet the need for more capacity than new
facility development. For example, new cooling architectures can enable
densities notably higher than average data center densities at a
fraction of the cost of building a new facility.
Assess Before Action. Perhaps one of the smartest investments
businesses can make in the coming year will be to assess their data
centers to identify and resolve vulnerabilities that threaten
availability, increase data center efficiency, and improve planning and
budget allocation.
Go from Room to Rack. Utilizing an integrated enclosure system
(i.e., data center-in-a-box or mini-computer room) offers a
cost-effective solution to protecting the equipment that may be in a
small data center or room. Instead of conditioning a whole room
environment, just protect the rack.
Cap the Cold Aisle. Cold-aisle containment allows cooling units
to run at reduced capacity to achieve ideal cooling conditions and save
energy costs. This tactic is more efficient and effective than
hot-aisle containment systems and offers a better environment for data
center personnel.
Check the Weather Forecast. In many locations, economizers can
be used to allow outside cool air to complement data center cooling
systems and provide free cooling during colder months. This approach
lowers energy usage, lessens wear on some components in the cooling
equipment, and decreases operational costs. All together, it can be a
welcome reduction in the data center electricity bill. It's also a
reason why a bevy of new data centers are being built in Iceland!
Watch Often if Not Always. The importance of monitoring what's
going on inside the complex and dynamic data center is more important
than ever. Keeping an eye on performance will help businesses steer
clear of unnecessary maintenance and repair costs. Success in this
endeavor will require IT and facilities to integrate disparate data
into a centralized portal where actionable and meaningful information
can be derived.
Improve Energy Utilization. Opportunities exist to improve
energy use throughout data centers of all sizes. For example, adding
variable frequency drives to cooling systems allows them to recognize
reduced loads and operate more efficiently. Every watt of savings
achieved on the processor level will create a total of 2.84 watts of
savings for the facility.
Avoid Cutting Corners. A preventive maintenance plan can extend
equipment life and reduce maintenance costs. For example, employ a
battery maintenance strategy so that your business isn't a victim of
the No. 1 cause of UPS failure -- bad batteries.
Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. It may be necessary to
minimize capital expenditures, but make sure you don't compromise
future scalability. UPS scalability is emerging as a popular solution
to reducing the risk associated with miscalculating future capacities.
Statistical analysis of UPS system configurations in light of failure
rates shows that system reliability begins to decrease sharply when
more than four UPS modules are used in a single system.
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