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Data Center Guide To Efficiency

admin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:16:42 +0000

Data centers use up to 50 times as much energy as the equivalent office space. This high energy usage is spread over computer loads, HVAC chillers, HVAC air handlers, UPS losses, lighting, humidifiers and other equipment. With such heavy energy usage, your data center should be a prime focus for significant savings through efficient designs and usage improvements.

Data center management is a balance between power, cooling and space. Poor cooling practices can lead to unnecessary capital investments as well as limit the amount of computing resources supported in your data center. Even small data centers can benefit from applying simple, best practices such as air segregation.

Poor air segregation practices can max out HVAC equipment at 50% of their plate rated capacity.

Using the space above and below the equipment to segregate air flow, data center managers can reduce the load on their HVAC equipment and lower costs.

Utilizing a hot and cold aisle configuration further reduces air mixing ensuring the return of higher temperature air to the HVAC air handlers and significantly extending economization hours. Increasing economizer usage improves equipment reliability and in mild climates can provide compressor free cooling.

In addition to hot aisle/cold aisle configurations, a rack by rack evaluation should be performed. Look for lightly loaded racks without blanking panels, floor tile leakage, and air flow obstructions which could represent wasted cooling and lost capacity.

With such high energy consumption and the ability to apply simple changes which offer significant saving opportunities, data centers should be a prime focus for efficient designs and usage improvements. Combined with an airside economizer, air management can reduce data center cooling costs by over 60%.

To find out how Metagyre has reduced costs for clients and improved operations contact us today. More detailed information on data center efficiency is available from PG&E “High Performance Data Centers“.

Save Money With Higher Data Center Temperatures

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:08:38 +0000

Research presented at the Data Center Energy Efficiency Summit (DCEE) in Sunnyvale, CA. left those in attendance with one major take away.

Raise the temperature in your data center a few degrees and you can save money. However, if the temperature in the data center causes the server fans to run too high, they will negate the saving from the chillers and air handlers.

Recommendations form industry groups for heating and air conditioning professionals recommends a temperature range from 77 to 80 degrees. As the room temperature rises, the chiller water set point can be raised as well.

The major take away: There are a number of factors that go into reducing energy costs in a data center. At Metagyre our professionals focus on saving clients money in the daily operations of their data center through improved power utilization, computing efficiencies, targeted air flow and the appropriate use of proven technologies.

Collocation Facilities And The Myth Of The Tiered Data Center

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:48:11 +0000

A number of years ago the ANSI/TIA-942-2005 came out as “the” Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers. Its purpose was to provide requirements and guidelines when designing a data center and to encourage planning for the data center earlier in the property development process.

One of the most quoted portions of the standard is the “Tiered Reliability”, which was intended as a means for determining specific data center needs required to lessen the time a data center was taken off-line. The tier breakdown assists designers with a method to quantify certain aspects and to objectively compare one center to another.

Tier I – Basic Components

single path for power and cooling with no redundant components (N)
susceptible to disruptions from both planned maintenance activities and unplanned events
may or may not have back up generator, UPS (uninterrupted power supply) or raised floor
99.671% availability – 28.8 hours (statistically) of annual downtime

Tier II – Redundant Maintainable

single path for power and cooling with redundant components (N+1)
less susceptible to planned and unplanned disruptions. Planned infrastructure maintenance may require a processing shutdown
includes generator, UPS, and raised floors
99.749% availability – 22.0 hours (statistically) of annual downtime

Tier III – Concurrently Tolerant

multiple paths for power and cooling with only one active at any time (active/passive – N+1)
planned infrastructure maintenance can be performed without disruption. Unplanned events may cause disruptions
includes raised floor, generator, UPS with each power and cooling path capable of carrying the full data center load
99.982% availability – 1.6 hours (statistically) of annual downtime

Tier IV – Fault Tolerant

multiple active power and cooling distribution paths including redundant components (2(N+1) S+S) for example each path has UPS in an N+1 configuration
can sustain planned maintenance activities and at least one unplanned event without a critical impact on load
includes raised floors, multiple generators, multiple UPS and other multiple distribution components
99.995% availability – 0.4 hours (statistically) of annual downtime

The standards went a long way to elevate the need for specific elements in the data center and the best practices for their usage. Unfortunately, once the marketing spin took off, numerous collocation vendors began touting their facilities as a Tier III or Tier IV without regard for the full spectrum of component requirements or the processes supporting those components. In addition the design standards cover other elements including:

cable and fiber designs
network distribution
rack and cabinets layout
space utilization and pathways
air flow design

Many commercial collocation facilities claiming higher fault tolerance, achieve this mark by maintaining a lower power density requirement on their tenants driving up customer costs and reducing cabinet layout efficiencies. Even when the power plant supports high electrical draws, floor load ratings may limit the cabinet’s capacity. Other times, best practices must be completely rethought, for example the best hot and cold aisle layout will fail to achieve design goals if the collocation facility locates the client in a cage space which does not support air flow management. Of course occasionally collocation customers themselves lower the reliability by failing to incorporate proper redundancy practices within their private suite or cage space.

Each business has unique up-time, cost, networking and processing density goals in mind when they establish a data center. In order to reach those goals, a balance between requirements and design standards must be struck. While the tiered data center may be an over used marketing myth, the ANSI/TIA-942-2005 provides a solid base template. This template, along with skilled engineering and management practices can go a long way to facilitate a data center build out that delivers on technical design goals at an agreed upon business price point.