Paul Finch, COO, Kao
Data, tells us why the
data centre industry can
no longer be reliant on
‘feeling’ its way forward
to achieving reduced
energy use. He says
there are now standard
processes that provide
scientific support to more
efficient and effective
data centre businesses.
In today’s trillion-dollar
data centre marketplace it
amazes me that there are
still significant numbers of
influential management people within
data centre organisations that are
entrenched in the belief that a cooled IT
space is a good place.
I
‘Feelings, nothing more than feelings’…
The words of the old song sum up many
data centre operators, especially when
it comes to decisions on cooling these
multi-million-pound investment projects.
Well it turns out that their instincts are
wrong. Not only is this ineffective, but
also inefficient and in this age of targeting
reductions in carbon footprint probably
corporately irresponsible.
Thankfully, increasing numbers of
organisations are heeding the latest
research in technology, reliability and
energy-efficiency performance that are
underpinning developments in cooling
data centres.
Evolving global guidelines, standards,
environmental policy and simple
economics are signalling cooling
strategies that move the industry out of
the dark and cooled age. These changes
are an indication of a departure from
the embedded data centre mind-set,
that mechanical cooling is an efficient
response for colocation data centre design
and operations.
As far back as 2004, enlightened
operators’ faith in what were then known
as ‘close-control’ environments started to
be eroded, driven by the creation of the
Thermal Guidelines and Environmental
Classes which have continued to evolve
over the last 15 years. The sea change
came back in 2011 when ASHRAE
widened the Environmental Classes,
introducing the Allowable Range. A
key consideration was the impact that
increased server inlet temperature would
have not only on energy-efficiency but
more importantly, server reliability,
driving up data centre availability.
The ASHRAE TC9.9 guidelines, Green
Grid initiatives such as PUE (and other
metrics), as well as other energy reduction
programmes like the EU Code of Conduct
(EuCoC), have created the opportunity
to operate data centres to increase the
effectiveness of servers, storage and
networking equipment they are designed
to support. ASHRAE TC9.9, for example,
through the correct application of the
environmental classes and coupled with
the appropriate cooling technologies can
A trillion-dollar
industry must
be built on more
than feelings
62
Issue 10
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