Too much power capacity in data
centres is going to waste
As the world is attempting to make a global effort to reduce waste
and energy consumption, it is important to look closer to home and
consider how we can do this in the technology sphere. Ed Ansett,
Chairman, i3 Solutions, and his team have developed a flexible
solution to wasted power and stranded capacity – an often ignored
area – as it is an ongoing consequence of cooling and energy
strategies for a large number of data centre operators.
D
ata centres exist to deliver IT
workloads in a manner that is both
capital and energy efficient, in
this way both data centre and customers
benefit. Yet the power delivery method
remains rigid, inflexible and usually
misaligned with IT SLAs, which has a
significant negative impact on performance
and infrastructure capital efficiency.
All data centre stakeholders are interested
in operating sustainable data centres,
energy efficiency and saving money. This
includes general managers in hyperscalers,
colocation company chief engineers and
their end-user customers, enterprise CTOs
and CIOs. One answer is to change the
data centre power provisioning where
static power infrastructure is not aligned
with IT workloads.
Changing IT needs
responsive power
As power usage rises and falls according
to Infrastructure and Platform-as-a-
Service environments, investors and
operators are seeking savings by trying to
figure out how they can align their power
SLA with the IT SLA. The fundamental
problem is that virtually all data centre
power designs are static. Changing
to a dynamic power design is key to
eliminating waste and maximising power
utilisation. The need for Power-as-a-
Service has never been greater. And it can
be done while saving CAPEX and OPEX.
The Adaptable Redundant
Power journey
Ed Ansett, Chairman, i3 Solutions
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
Adaptable Redundant Power (ARP)
has been developed by Ed Ansett and
Kerr Johnstone at i3 Solutions Group
and demonstrates that data centre
power systems can be both flexible
and responsive, driving efficiencies and
As occupancy incrementally increases,
an ARP-enabled power design requires
fewer power modules. The modules are
then run at higher utilisation. This means
that as the data centre load increases,
the investment capital of deploying new
modules can be deferred because the
operator can now access what would
otherwise have been stranded capacity
from the power system.
ARP does this by provisioning predefined
variable redundancy levels to IT loads by
accessing redundant power from stranded
islands of power capacity trapped in the
electrical infrastructure. This leads to
significant deferred capital and substantial
capital savings.
In addition, in operating terms, the
benefits of ARP start immediately when
data centre utilisation rates are low.
For example, in a 10MW data centre with
five halls of 2MW each, an ARP-based
design starts to deliver benefits when
utilisation rates are at their lowest, for
example when only one or two halls are
in use and IT workloads are beginning
to ramp up. At this stage, ARP end-state
power costs savings as a percentage of
total power cost are at their highest. This
means operators are not buying unused
power or wasting energy. And as data
centre utilisation rates rise, ARP ensures
CAPEX and OPEX savings throughout the
life cycle of the data centre.
The answer to questions about capital
efficiency and environmental sustainability
in the data centre sector must be seen
through the lens of Power-as-a-Service.
This is what ARP achieves. ◊
Issue 14
55
i
For many in the data centre sector, one of
the most pressing concerns is that much
of the world’s data centre infrastructure
operates in a manner that is financially
suboptimal and environmentally
unsustainable. While there is steady
capital inflows to the data centre sector,
some are questioning whether data
centres are as capital efficient as they
could be. If a data centre is only using
a fraction of the available power then
the capital investment that is tied up in
inflexible power infrastructure is impotent.
The question is, who is paying for that
stranded capacity and unused space?
lowering operating costs. ARP works
by capturing and then using stranded
capacity in the data centre. By providing
higher utilisation to the power modules, it
delivers significantly improved returns on
invested capital.