Data centers consume large amounts of electricity and produce significant carbon emissions. They are often inefficient, with only around 50% of energy going to IT loads while the rest is lost to physical infrastructure. This can be improved through better sizing, modular scalable designs, high-efficiency equipment, and optimization techniques like hot/cold aisle containment. Achieving higher data center infrastructure efficiency (DCiE) through monitoring and improvement strategies can reduce electricity bills by up to 50% and lower environmental impact.

1. Data Centre Environments
CCS Commercial Overview Session 3
The Greening of the Data Centre
16th December 2008
Paul Mathews MInstSMM
Global Channel Manager

2. • The heartbeat of any business, designed to manage the flow, processing and
storage of information
• Must be reliable, secure and flexible to enable growth and reconfiguration
• A data centre can support small singular businesses through to thousands of
clients ecommerce facilities
• “A building or portion of a building whose primary function is to house a
computer room and its support areas,” according to TIA 942
Introduction to Data Centres

3. Energy usage in Data Centres
• Average 200 sq m computer room in a data centre uses 52 more times
electricity than an office LAN
• An average of 7500 kW hours per sq m / pa
• Present day servers generate around 2.5 kW of heat per sq m – this is
expected to rise to 10 kW as CPUs become densely populated
• A floor tile emits an average of 1.2 tonnes of carbon omissions pa
• Based on costs of £450.00 per sq m would result in savings over £9000 if
efficiency was improved by 10%

4. Energy wastage in Data Centres
• Huge financial industry burden and public policy environmental issue
• If a Data Centre could be 100% efficient, all electrical power would need to
reach the IT loads
• Real world environments see non-IT physical infrastructure devices
consuming power (manifested as heat), including:
- Transformers
- UPS
- Power wiring
- Fans
- Air conditioners
- Pumps
- Humidifiers
- Lighting
This all needs cooling (therefore
consumes more power)
Increased redundancy means
more energy required

5. Why are data centres inefficient?
• Over sizing of the physical infrastructure creates fixed losses of electrical
power and cooling systems
• Data Centre industry power and cooling usage worldwide wastes more than
60,000,000 megawatt-hours per year of electricity
• Data Centres typically run at 30-50% of capacity
• Losses in energy are proportional to overall electrical power ratings of a
system, regardless of IT load (so installations with light IT loads, fixed losses
of the physical infrastructure equipment often exceed IT load)
Example:
• Every 10 Watts of power delivered to a data centre loaded to 10% of its rated
capacity, only 1 Watt actually reaches the IT equipment, remaining 9 Watts
are lost to energy inefficiencies
• Generally, 50% of energy in data centres goes to IT Loads, the other 50% to
physical infrastructure equipment including electrical power devices

6. Data Centre Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE)
• Data centres needs to become more green
• Measuring data centre efficiency is measured as the ratio of watts to the IT Load /
Watts to the data centre (DCIE)
• To maximise DCiE, efficiency measurements for the whole data centre should be
monitored and targeted for improvement in an ongoing strategy

7. DCiE Architecture (Data Centre Subsystem)
• IT Load
• Auxiliary devices
• Lights
• Humidifiers
• Chillers
• Pumps
• Heat Rejection
• CRAC
• Distribution Wiring
• Switchgear
• Generator
• PDU
• UPS

8. Data Centre Greening
Improvement Guidelines – Part 1
• Electrical power and cooling equipment not needed should not be energised
• Minimise over sizing where possible, so equipment operated within the
optimum region of efficiency
• Electrical power, cooling and lighting equipment should utilise up-to-date
technology to minimise power consumption
• Sub-systems used for redundancy should be optimised for their fractional
load capacity, not the full load efficiency

9. Data Centre Greening
Improvement Guidelines – Part 2
• Use a capacity management tool to manage the amount of electrical power
and cooling to the Data Centre, ensuring ‘stranded capacity’ is minimised
• To optimise the efficiency of zones/areas within the data centre, an integrated
physical configuration should control the system and not just one room
Example
Row-based cooling for racks should be integrated with IT racks, independent
from the room based cooling
• Integrate management systems to monitor and alert electrical consumption
levels that cause high inefficiency levels

10. Data Centre Greening
Improvement Guidelines – Part 3 Cabling
• Design cabling and racks to maximise air flow (use blanking panels in
cabinets, hot and cold aisle placement)
• Use pre-terminated cabling to reduce waste
• Consider optical fibre:
- kinder to the environment in manufacturing v copper
- bullet proof for longer life cycle
- components consume less power v copper
- higher bandwidth, extended distance (performance)
- cabling such as Connectix Starlight MTP reduces amount of cables and
improves air flow

11. Sizing the Data Centre
• Sizing the physical infrastructure inline with the IT Load will have the most
impact on electrical consumption
• Scalable physical infrastructures that can grow with IT Load offer the best
opportunity to limit electrical waste and costs
• A well designed, correctly sized physical infrastructure can eliminate up to
50% of the electrical bill in real-world installations
• So….. Design a modular, scalable physical infrastructure

12. Sub-system Greening
Part 1
• Scalable electrical power and cooling:
Helps increase efficiency in smaller data centres or data centres early in their
life form
Helps defer capital and operating costs until needed
• Row-based cooling:
Shortens the air flow path to improve predictability of air distribution
Perimeter CRACs operate at 80% efficient at 70% IT Load
Row-base CRACs operate at 95% efficient at 70% IT Load

13. Sub-system Greening
Part 2
• High-efficiency UPS
Current new products can improve efficiency by over 10% compared to
current installed UPS
• Capacity management tools
A mixture of tools and company regulations that implements a safe operating
system that is higher density and more efficient, designed to reduce capital
costs and energy bills

14. Energy Efficiency Best Practices
• Install blanking panels
• Coordinate CRAC Units
• Improve under floor airflow
• Implement hot and cold aisles
• Install sensors to monitor temperature
• Implement cold aisle or hot aisle containment
• Raise the temperature in the data centre (ASHRAE)
to improve electrical use
• Exploit ‘free cooling’
• Design new data centres and computer rooms using modular cooling
Additional information can be
found in the Gartner report ‘How
to Save a Million Kilowatt Hours
in your Data Centre’

15. Data Centre Whitepapers
• Data Centre Design Whitepaper
http://www.connectixcablingsystems.com/library/detail.cfm?item=10

16. Connectix Technical Articles
• Log on to www.connectixcablingsystems.com for full access to our data
centre and high speed LAN support articles
• Log on to www.connectixcablingsystems.com/events for details of our Data
Centre Design Principle Seminars run in association with The IET
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Professional Development BICSI Continuing Education Credits