EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

MATTHEW FARNELL , EMEA DIRECTOR , EKKOSENSE

ata centre operations

This should hardly come as a surprise , with data centre facilities hard at work supporting all the ‘ essential ’ technology services that we now insist on to support our personal and professional lives . Driven by trends that show no sign of slowing down , such as increased data usage associated with streaming services and 5G adoption , these escalating IT loads are clearly having an impact on data centre electrical loads .

At the same time , critical facilities such as data centres are under intense pressure to reduce their energy use . Finding ways to cut carbon usage in data centres is challenging when the broader business insists on everincreasing workloads . Despite this , data centre operations teams need to find answers to this challenge – particularly as the reality of corporate ESG programmes and net zero commitments start to bite .

Traditional data centre approaches are struggling to meet these two often conflicting goals . Given that the average data centre operates for over 20 years , this shouldn ’ t really be a surprise . Efficiency is invariably tied to a facility ’ s original design and frequently based on expected IT loads that have long been overtaken . At the same time change is a constant factor , with platforms , equipment design , topologies , power density requirements and cooling demands all evolving with the continued drive for new applications . The result is a global data centre infrastructure that regularly finds it hard to match current and planned IT loads to their critical infrastructure . This will only be exacerbated as data centre demands increase .

That ’ s why it ’ s essential that data centre operators do everything they can to improve visibility across their operations . It ’ s surprising just how many data centre teams have little or no visibility of their assets , capacity and operating efficiency – or if they do then the data is buried deep in legacy systems such as older BMS or EPMS platforms . Subsequently at EkkoSense we ’ re focused on creating powerful live 3D views that capture an organisation ’ s entire data centre space utilisation , power usage and cooling capacity – either on a room-by-room basis or across an entire estate .

Standing still is clearly not an option for data centre teams . While replacing M & E infrastructure with more efficient equipment is a long-accepted method for gradually improving DC efficiency , payback periods of capital projects are invariably longer and tied to the project implementation timeline .

Very few performance optimisation approaches can help data centre teams address workload throughput , risk reduction and sustainability at the same time . However , EkkoSense – with our unique software-driven , AI-enabled EkkoSoft Critical thermal optimisation solution – is able to deliver results within weeks and RoI in less than a year . www . intelligentdatacentres . com

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