HP Unveils 'Power Capping' for Servers (
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Additions to HP's Thermal Logic portfolio include a new power-saving ProLiant server, new power-capping server software, and energy-efficiency services. All are designed to reduce operational costs and shrink data center carbon footprints by using a smaller power draw and less energy for air cooling.
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard on Nov. 3 unveiled a laundry list
of new products and services with the "Green IT" common denominator
connecting all of them.
The additions to its Thermal Logic portfolio include a new power-saving
ProLiant server, new power-capping server software and
energy-efficiency services. All are designed to reduce operational
costs and shrink data center carbon footprints by using a smaller power
draw and less energy for air cooling.
Thermal Logic is new
software embedded in HP products and services that combines precise
measurement and control of power and cooling in data centers with
energy-efficient product and solution design.
The most important new Thermal Logic item is HP Dynamic Power Capping,
which reallocates power and cooling resources in the data center by
setting or "capping" the power drawn by the servers, Peter Gross,
president of EYP Mission Critical Facilities, told a group of reporters
here at Building 3 on the company campus.
This "power capping" eliminates the need for over-provisioning,
allowing companies to reclaim trapped energy and improve their overall
computing and/or storage capacity, Gross said. The power allocations
are set in advance by IT managers, based on previous server history,
but can be changed on the fly automatically as situations demand.
"The older data centers were always set up so that there was way more
capacity than what was actually required," Gross said. "This was the
way they were all built, because as an IT manager, you never wanted to
get caught with the breakers tripped.
"You always had to have way more capacity than you needed in case of a
disaster. And this necessarily led to a lot of wasted capacity, and
thus wasted power and cooling to maintain it."
New ProLiant server uses 25 percent less power
Now, with huge advances in data center software development during the
last several years, much better control of computing power and storage
capacity is available.
HP has released a new blade server, the ProLiant BL460c G5,
which has been redesigned for energy efficiency -- using new,
cooler-running processors -- and optimized for power-constrained
environments, HP Vice President of Marketing for Servers Paul Gottsegen
said.
"This server uses only 44 fewer watts per blade, saving more than 700
watts per enclosure compared to its [HP] predecessor -- up to a 25
percent energy-efficiency improvement," Gottsegen said.
In addition, HP announced that its BladeSystem c7000 enclosure has been
enhanced with a new HP 24000W High Efficiency Hot-Plug Power Supply.
This provides higher efficiency than existing power supply units and
also reduces losses at low loads by placing half the power supply in
standby, Gottsegen said.
Two other key additions to the HP portfolio are Energy Efficiency
Analysis, which offers a comprehensive assessment of a customer's data
center using HP's proprietary return-on-investment modeling tool, and
Energy Efficiency Design, which provides designs for new buildings or
retro-commissioning existing facilities for compliance with worldwide
environmentally accredited standards.
Energy Efficiency Analysis provides scenarios and cost benefits along
with detailed plans for energy-efficiency improvements, investment
payback and facility reliability, Gross said.