Understanding the Energy Value Chain

Energy management and sustainability are closely related, and for many organizations understanding the energy value chain is essential for delivering enhanced and sustainable corporate outcomes. The primary drivers for poor energy efficiency are poor capacity planning, utilization of server space within the organization, and the lack of accountability for critical data center facilities-CapEx and data center operational efficiency.

Therefore, companies must largely focus on improving the operational efficiency of data centers through proper capacity planning and utilizing more technologically advanced data center physical infrastructure solutions, migrating to more energy efficient computing platforms.

Thus, the primary driver of power consumption is the power draw of IT equipment. For example, IT equipment vendors have not provided adequate information, to allow data center managers to make decisions based on power usage. Managers do not understand that they have IT choices that can affect power consumption.

Operational Actions

Retiring IT Systems: At many data centers there are old technology platforms which has remained operational for archival or research purposes. Whereas most data centers, actually have application servers which are operating but has no users. It is useful to invent these systems and create a retirement plan. In many cases, systems can be taken off line and powered down, even if they are not physically retired.

Operating Existing Systems: Today, the new servers have power management features, which means that they are able to reduce power consumption at times of reduced computational load. Few years ago, this was not true, when the power consumption of virtually all IT equipment was constant and independent of computational load. This change in the IT technology should be known to the data center managers.

Migration to Energy Efficient Computing Platforms: Migration to electrically-efficient platforms, is another efficacious strategy for reducing power consumption. Most data centers have so-called ‘low density servers' that are three to five years old. These servers draw the same or less power (per server) than today's blade servers, and moreover, they are physically much larger per servers. Migration to modern blade servers from legacy servers on a server-by-server basis, does not reduce the total power consumption and it may even increase. At the time of deployment of a new server planning, the use of blade servers as opposed to alternative server form factors, will give up to 20% reduction in power consumption. However, such migration will permit much higher packing densities for servers.

Planning Actions

Virtualization: Virtualization of servers resulted in reduction of IT power requirements, dramatically reducing the number of installed servers. The elimination of a server is a structural consumption avoidance of approximately 200-400 W, depending on technology. Therefore the electricity consumption avoided is approximately $380 per year per server elimination. By this structural avoidance, the total 10 year TCO cost is saved which approximately is $7,680 per server eliminated.

Standardization: Standardization on energy efficient servers is a very effective approach, even if virtualization is not used. Today, blade servers are the most energy efficient form of servers. However, the available blade types for a given blade server system, can vary dramatically-performance and power consumption. It is difficult to predict in advance, the performance requirement for a server-based application.

Conclusion

When servers are virtualized, the strategy of using the highest performance server is generally the best approach to minimize overall power consumption.

For data centers that standardize on a blade server system and deploy servers per application, the option available is to standardize on two blades-a high performance high power blade and a lower performance/lower power blade. The range of power consumption can be greater than two-to-one.

The energy consumption can also be reduced through proper deployment of Data Center Physical Infrastructure (DCPI) equipment. Of all the techniques available to data center managers, right-sizing of the DCPI system to the load, has the most impact on DCPI energy consumption.

Another important technique is to design energy efficient systems by focusing on efficiency of individual servers/devices. Many organizations assume that the energy consumption of a system is controlled by the efficiency of the individual components, and therefore that the main approach to reducing power consumption is to focus on the efficiency of the individual devices.

The energy cost of data centers is a substantial operating cost, that can and should be managed. A data center designed for reduced power consumption-saves the operating cost associated with power and cooling systems, as well as it saves space. An efficient data center, enhances performance and delivers competitive advantage over a range of time scales. Additionally, decentralized IT and communications devices continue to proliferate across most organizations, bringing investment integration, energy, and disposal requirements. Therefore, the need for green IT applications and investments has become imperative for sustainable business levers.