What are economizer systems and how do they improve energy efficiency?

This is the year that discussions around using outside air economization will be heard at many seminars.  The introduction of Liebert’s DSE, as well as ASHRAE’s proposal to increase the server air inlet temperatures, will certainly allow considerable energy cost savings to those early adopters. Don Beaty, DLB Associates, recently conducted a US Government seminar on Data Centers speaking to how efficient we can become utilizing outside air as an economization strategy, as well as (dare I say it) primary means of cooling a Data Center.  ASHRAE has recently released a study on areas of the United States where outside air, properly filtered and metered for gaseous and particulate contamination, can be considered as your primary source of cooling. Does your outside environment play a role in this decision?  Absolutely.  A thorough site assessment with a knowledgeable company is well worth the cost.  We all need to ask ourselves why Facebook, Microsoft and others are choosing locations conducive to utilizing outside air.

Published on March 7, 2012 | Richard Werner, Comcast, 7x24 Exchange

What energy savings can be expected for different types of economizers?

DVL and Emerson Network Power hosted a Data Center Infrastructure Management Seminar at the Microsoft Technology Center on Friday (2/24/12) - we had a great turnout and discussion. If you missed the seminar, click here to check out the presentation.

IT and facilities organizations have invested heavily in technology resources (people, processes, and tools) to manage the data center infrastructure, they have failed to achieve the promise and potential due to critical gaps between their data center facilities and IT infrastructure components. A new perspective on managing the critical infrastructure gaps is emerging that recognizes:

• The importance of 'real-time' data to understand the true capacity of available infrastructure
• The criticality of interdependencies between logical and physical layers
• The need for holistic management capabilities and visibility of IT and facilities infrastructures
• The need for more powerful management tools that offer a rich, visual view of the infrastructure and can guide design and change management 

>> Check out the FOUR TRENDS Driving the Future of Data Center Infrastructure Design and Management.

Energy costs are the fastest-rising cost element in the data center. Based on current trends, the EPA estimates that energy consumed by data centers will continue to grow by 12 percent per year. Power and thermal energy consumption balanced with energy savings is one of the major responsibilities of facility and IT managers. Intel Data Center Manager group has observed how the data center is now a source for CIOs and their technical teams to add to the bottom line through increased power and cooling efficiency. 

Leading data centers are ramping up to real-time power and thermal management. There is a growing recognition of the ROI benefit through monitoring usage by device. This provides real-time energy consumption data in relation to the actual workload for individual servers and groups of servers. Collecting data of the actual power and thermal trends over days, weeks and years provides ROI benefit through the following: effective capacity planning, power provisioning, device utilization or replacement, preventive maintenance, and failure or disaster avoidance.

Here are three value drivers for power and cooling efficiency, outlining the various options for CIOs to reduce costs in the data center and contribute to corporate profitability.

>> Read full article now  By Jeff Klaus is director, Intel Data Center Manager

What are the Promises, Challenges and Imperatives of Data Center Infrastructure Management?  Contact Us

One thing we are seeing more and more of today is confusion over what temperature and humidity parameters data centers should be designed for.  Most of the discussion seems to assume that there is a monolithic block of data centers that can all be designed the same way.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Most of the data centers in existence today have a mixture of technologies and systems that all have varying environmental requirements.  We typically refer to these as mixed use data centers.  Unlike an E-Bay, Google, Microsoft or Apple data center, there is not rack after rack of the same equipment, all with similar operating requirements.  That is a very small, but highly publicized part of the market.  Everyone loves to write about the latest designs from Yahoo, Google, Apple, Etc, but they are not representative of the larger data center market as a whole. 

I know these data centers don’t get the publicity of the designs that push the envelope, but they are much more representative of the data center market as a whole.  We certainly do our share of cutting edge designs, but the majority of our clients are looking for ways to add capacity and increase the efficiency of their “traditionally designed” data centers.  This may include air and water side economizers and/or more efficient UPS systems and distribution.   The designs vary significantly, but the one thing these data centers have in common is that they all have equipment requirements that would preclude some of the modern designs that have little to no temperature and humidity control.

Published on 30th January 2012 by Ron Hughes-Data Center Dynamics

Every 3 to 4 months, DVL hosts a small Data Center Users' Forum.  The mission of the DCUF is to provide a commercial free forum where members collaborate on relevant mission-critical issues, new technologies, customer testimonials, and best practices affecting reliability, availability, and lowest cost of operation.

Last Friday, the DCUF, which includes IT and facilities professionals from multiple industry types, discussed various topics including:  Data Center Infrastructure Management, metering and trending, bridging the gap between IT and Facilities, outsourcing vs. keeping everything in-house, industry power trends, passive RFID asset technology, containment, power outage/root cause analysis.

For more information about the Data Center Users' Forum/DVL: