AS WE KNOW, all this creates a real challenge for CIOs. Rising data volumes (and the related storage needed to support this) all serves to increase a data centre’s energy requirements, yet tighter budgets and stricter carbon emissions regulations are putting restrictions on energy usage. And, with FTSE companies now required to report carbon emissions, we need to be more accountable, transparent and responsible than ever before.
The legacy of the ‘traditional’ data centre model no longer makes sense. Squeezing big hot sweaty servers into a warehouse that’s not designed to be kept cool – or to scale effectively - is a recipe for energy inefficiency that’s both expensive and unnecessary.
We have a real opportunity to change the way the industry works and to redefine how data centres are viewed. And a number of exciting new industry innovations are already signposting how it’s possible to boost data centre efficiency and sustainability – generating cost savings that go straight to the bottom line.
Cooler by design
It is thanks to their real estate origins, that most data centres consume vast amounts of energy in a wasteful manner. Worryingly, around 80% of UK data centres still reside within buildings that were never designed for this purpose. Which means their structure, organisation and utilisation can’t be optimised to deliver the efficiencies today’s CIOs need.
But purpose-built data centres, designed with efficient energy usage in mind are able to generate significant capacity and comparatively low-energy consumption in relation to computational workloads.
In these centres, for example, simply positioning servers in a way that optimises air flow more intelligently can save huge amounts of money.
Cooling costs represent a significant portion of the energy consumption of a typical data centre – but today’s new era data centres feature automated, real-time monitoring technologies that trigger instant adjustments to ambient environmental conditions.
At Ark, for example, we employ a highly sophisticated ‘matching technology’ that samples equipment every fraction of a second, instantly detecting any change in cooling requirements and automatically activating the opening and closure of louvered doors to the data room that quickly changes the flow of cool air.
What’s more, we’ve turned the cooling process we employ at 90 degrees to the norm, so cool air runs through hardware rather than passing in front of it – a far more effective approach.
The inherent ability of our cooling system to deliver the correct volumes of air when called for, coupled with a highly sensitive monitoring system, means our IT rooms can support a mix of racks of varying density - from 1kW to in excess of 30+kW – operating side-by-side. In utilising BladeRoom Match Technology, we’ve gained the ability to freely allocate low- and high-density data centre space and IT without the need for specialised racks. This would have been impossible if we’d followed the more traditional approach of pressurising a raised floor, which typically results in hot spots or over-cooling.
Getting to Grips with PUE
Most companies tend to run a building at a power usage efficiency (PUE) of 2.5 or higher (especially in the case of data centres that are 10-12 years old) but if you could attain a PUE of 1.25, there is potential to achieve savings of around £1.1 million, per megawatt, per year. From an environmental perspective, that’s 6,000 tonnes of carbon you’re no longer being taxed on.
But PUE is a pretty crude industry measurement that’s often grossly misrepresented by data centre suppliers. It is time for the industry to move on and follow in our pioneering steps to not only guarantee PUE but to be completely honest and transparent with it. That means including all other energy costs relating to the data centre estate in calculations; in many cases, organisations don’t include the power consumed by other aspects of their data centre such as lighting or security systems into their PUE.
Today’s CIOs need to get to grips not just with fine-tuning energy use with computing workload and cooling needs. They also need to look at the reality of their overall PUE to understand, in a meaningful way, exactly how efficient their data centre operation really is.
Smarter resource management
Smarter and more genuine environmental policies are also required along with innovate approaches to minimising environmental impact. For example, permeable road surfaces and spaced block-paving that facilitates the surface run-off of rainwater.
Using a rainwater harvester to collect and store the run-off supply in balancing ponds and employing a reserve osmosis plant and water purification process to utilise this precious resource in cooling systems. This reduces demand on the mains water supply.
Ultimately, operational objectives should be to deliver a sustainable and highly efficient data centre environment that generates significant benefits for customers, including a significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers. Recently, one of our customers revealed that for half a data room with 350kW they’ve achieved a 60% saving in power costs over five years. That equates to 28,000 tonnes of carbon and a £5.56 million saving for just that one small installation.
At Ark we’ve demonstrated that green practices and operational performance can work hand-in-hand – and that undertaking small, yet strategic changes, can deliver impressive environmental and cost benefits.
