Intelligent Data Centres Issue 32 | Page 21

INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY THE DCA

How to run increased data centre workloads while delivering significant carbon savings

With organisations in the data centre sector expected to deliver on net zero carbon , they must make best use of the tools available to them to unlock significant data centre carbon reduction that the wider business requires . Dean Boyle , CEO ,
EkkoSense , draws upon some of the ways data centre managers can make smarter performance choices .

Today ’ s data centres have never been busier , with analyst projections suggesting that workload levels are only going to increase over the next few years – with some projecting a 21 % CAGR growth rate through to 2025 .

Organisations are working hard to transform operations and accelerate their processes so that they can execute digitally at scale . And , whether it ’ s online retail , e-banking , mobile services delivered by 5G or new digital media , there ’ s an associated IT workload that ’ s driving further demand for data centre services .
Data centres are also coming under increased pressure to reduce their energy consumption – particularly as the reality of corporate net zero commitments start to bite . With both public sector bodies and private companies making dramatic net zero carbon commitments , there ’ s going to be sustained pressure on the high energy users within organisations to start making serious carbon reductions .
This places data centres – already established as one of the world ’ s highest collective consumers of energy – firmly in the spotlight . With the upcoming COP26 UN Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow this November , there ’ s going to be an increased focus on securing global net zero and the requirement to reduce data centre carbon emissions will become more intense . That ’ s why it ’ s important that data centre IT operations teams are seen to be doing everything they can to deliver quick carbon reduction wins .
It ’ s perhaps not surprising that many data centre teams find this challenge daunting , particularly as increasing workloads while securing carbon reductions can seem like conflicting goals . The good news is that this can be achieved . Earlier this year , EkkoSense conducted research that analysed the actual cooling performance within live data centres for many of the world ’ s leading brands . We assessed cooling performance across a sample of some 133 data centre halls and tracked some 33,000 IT racks .
The results found that the current average data centre cooling utilisation level is only around 40 % – meaning that most organisations are not even using over half their cooling capacity . Our analysis also showed that operations are missing out on proven ways of cutting cooling energy consumption by up to 30 % using the latest software-based optimisation approaches .
Organisations clearly want to deliver on carbon obligations , but that can be www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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