Green - or Seeing Red?

Our theme for this issue is Linux and there is a lot of Linux-related content elsewhere in E-PING, so I want to stray off subject and talk about data centres.

If you read or watch any media outlet you cannot fail to have noticed in recent weeks that everybody is talking green, and in the IT press, that discussion focuses around the data centre. I’ve been doing a lot of research into data centres recently, as we’re just beginning the process of designing and building a new one on campus.

Some of the facts I’ve unearthed are enough to make you turn green!

●  Data centres account for 1.5% of energy consumption in the UK

●  Demand for power in the data centre doubles every five years (Source: Gartner)

●  ‘Traditional’ fully-loaded racks consume between 3 and 10 kWatts. Blade solutions can push this to 30-40 kWatts per rack, and I have heard rumours of one site who are planning for 75 kWatts per rack.

●  Traditional air cooling usually cannot cope with more than 10 kWatts per rack; beyond that we need to be looking to water cooling or CO₂ technologies.

●  Air conditioning can take as much (or more) power than your IT equipment, although good design can reduce that. (How good a design layout do you have in your machine room?)

However you look at it, we consume a great deal of power. I’m planning for MegaWatts in my new data centre, and a third party hosting service in London has just installed a 13 MegaWatt upgrade to their facility.

This power demand therefore has the potential to drive our business into the red - that’s assuming of course your energy supplier can deliver the power you need. Many companies’ growth is now being stifled by a lack of available power.

With such interest and money around, it’s not surprising that HP and others are now offering energy-efficient data centre solutions. Some are radical, involving little less than a complete rebuild of the computer room, but others are more incremental. Design and layout can deliver significant savings. Technology changes in UPS and air conditioning offer promising returns on investment, and the purchase of energy efficient servers will help reduce the power bill. Service and server consolidation and virtualisation will also help reduce your overall inventory, but be warned - Gartner says this will help slow the increase in power demand, but an increase over the years there will still be.

So, pulling us back to our main theme in a contorted way, can Linux consolidation and virtualisation help with your power bills?


Please mail all comments (good or bad) to admin@hpug.org.uk