Data Center Practices that Improve Efficiency

Over the past several weeks, Crockett Facilities Services (CFSI) has covered several hot topics in Data Center Cooling, including Energy Efficient Cooling Technology Trends, The Impact of Preventive Maintenance, and Reducing Energy Consumption. This week, we are addressing how to boost energy efficiency and sharing data center managers’ biggest concerns.

According to Emerson Network Power’s most recent semiannual survey of its Data Center Users’ Group (DCUG), which incorporates around 1,000 North American data center operators, “heat density is again one of the three biggest concerns for data center professionals.” Energy efficiency also cracked the top three.

Statistics from the Emerson Network Power Semiannual Survey

1. 93% of respondents measure the temperature in their data center, while 79% measure humidity, 72% measure cooling utilization, 88% measure power utilization, and 56% measure Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
2. 27% of respondents experienced hot spots in the past year, with 15% reporting an outage during that time.
3. 56% of respondents believe their current data center capacity will be sufficient for the next three years.

As capacity needs continues to grow and budgets continue to shrink, data center professionals are being forced to refocus their efforts on one of the most fundamental aspects of the data center infrastructure, effectively and efficiently managing heat. If not properly addressed, heat density can negatively impact data center performance levels.

Seven Practices to Help Improve Your Data Center’s Energy Efficiency

1. A Holistic Approach to Efficiency: Rather than dealing with projects in isolation, tackle efficiency using a combination of integrated technologies and techniques. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by ensuring facilities, IT, and other departments are on the same page.
2. Cost Effective Cooling: The average data center spends 50 cents on cooling and power for every dollar spent on IT. To reduce cooling costs, look into liquid cooling and free cooling (using outside for cooling).
3. Renewable Energy: Another way to cut costs is to generate your own power. Several popular choices include solar panels, hydrogen and even cow manure.
4. Save Watts: As much as 70% of all electricity that comes through your data center is wasted through power conversions. A DC-based power-distribution system eliminates these costly conversions.
5. Efficiently Use IT Equipment: Countless companies are turning to virtualization to consolidate hardware and reduce server counts. Many companies are also utilizing data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software, which graphically displays a complete inventory of your center’s physical and logical assets, including rack and data center floor location and rack-heat load.
6. Go Modular: Going modular entails deploying portable pods (modules), comprising standard components, including IT hardware, power, and cooling components. The best part − companies can add new modules as needed, adding an element of flexibility.
7. Implement an preventive maintenance program for your data center cooling equipment: As a mechanical contractor specializing in data center cooling services, CFSI is ready to help you with your mission-critical data center needs. Our Liebert, Emerson and Stulz factory-certified technicians are experts in preventive maintenance services for computer room air conditioners (CRACs), servicing clients such as NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense.

To learn more about our Data Center Cooling Services, please contact Crockett Facilities Services (CFSI) at 202.600.2787 or sales@crockett-facilities.com.

Sources:

Heat rises among data center managers’ concerns

Six habits of highly efficient data centers

This entry was posted on Friday, June 21st, 2013 at . Both comments and pings are currently closed.