Get prepared for the top 10 Data Center surprises at DVL

Emerson released a list of 10 common surprises for data center and IT managers and offered tips on how to be prepared for them. The list, released at AFCOM Data Center World Spring, includes information on a surprising cause of data center downtime, what data center managers might not know about that next server refresh, and the growing trend sneaking up on virtually every IT manager.

“When you are a data center or IT manager, very few things are more unsettling than the unexpected,” said Peter Panfil, vice president of global power, Emerson Network Power. “We hope this list helps IT professionals better anticipate these issues and prepares them with the appropriate technologies, solutions and best practices.”

Get Prepared for the Top 10 Data Center surprises (click below).  

Download Top Data Center Surprises (click below).

What is your DCIM strategy?

The Data Center industry is in need of of a solution that bridges the IT and facilities systems and provides data in appropriate interfaces across IT and facilities groups.  A holistic DCIM strategy is a data center manager’s best partner in meeting the stringent business demands in a modern-day data center environment. To successfully implement a DCIM strategy, data center managers must be on the lookout for the best family of hardware, software and services that allows them to address the critical infrastructure gap.

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

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?

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

An alternative approach to conventional alternating-current (AC) power uses a direct-current (DC) power distribution scheme throughout a data center. Most data center server racks are not currently powered this way, but with the advent of servers on the market that can operate with either AC or DC, it is possible to use the DC powering approach, thus eliminating extra power conversion steps and losses. Other benefits include reduced cooling needs, higher equipment densities, and reduced heat-related failures.

This web site describes two pioneering demonstrations - one where direct current is distributed at the facility level to racks of computers that have been modified to directly accept high voltage direct current (DC) and another where the DC power conversion occurs at the rack level and DC is then directly distributed to servers within the rack. In typical data centers, the loss in electrical power through conversions of alternating current (AC) to DC to AC to DC occurs for all power flowing to the IT equipment. Efficiency gains have a magnifying effect by reducing need for HVAC (e.g. 10% saving at the UPS level mean about 10% energy savings for the entire data center, compared to a very efficient AC baseline case and assuming the HVAC system consumes as much power as the IT equipment).  Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory .

>> Read more now 

A New Study Reinforces Case For DC Power Saving

It’s been five years since a study by Lawrence Berkeley National Labs outlined the potential for DC power distribution to cut data center energy use by 10 to 20 percent. But adoption of DC in data centers remains limited, even as the industry aggressively pursues a wide array of other energy savings strategies.

>> Read more now