Best Practices for Green Data Center Design & Operation

Right-sizing the physical infrastructure system to the load, using efficient physical infrastructure devices, and designing an energy-efficient system are all techniques to help reduce energy costs. A successful strategy for addressing the data center energy management challenge requires a multi-pronged approach that should be enforced throughout the lifecycle of the data center.

Best Practices - Data Center Engineering for Efficiency

System design

In datac enters, system design has a much greater effect on the electrical consumption than does the efficiency of individual devices. In fact, two datacenters comprised of the same devices may have considerably different electrical bills. For this reason, system design is even more important than the selection of power and cooling devices in determining the efficiency of a data center.

Floor layout

Floor layout has a significant effect on the efficiency of the air conditioning system. Ideal arrangements involve hot-aisle/cold-aisle configurations with suitable air conditioner locations. The primary design goal of this floor layout approach is cool air and warm air segregation.

Proper configuration of server software

When configuring servers, many data center managers are not careful about how they configure the powerrelated software. Power-economizer modes should always be selected to ensure more efficient operation of the server.

Location of vented floor tiles

In an average data center, many vented tiles are either placed in incorrect locations or an insufficient or excessive number of vented tiles is installed. By using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in the datacenter environment, the designer can optimize datacenter cool air flow by “tuning” floor tiles by varying locations and by regulating the percent of vents that are open at any given time or can optimize CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning) unit locations.

Rightsized physical infrastructure components

Of all of the techniques available to users, rightsizing the physical infrastructure system to the load has the most impact on physical infrastructure electrical consumption. There are fixed losses in the power and cooling systems that are present whether the IT load is present or not, and these losses are proportional to the overall power rating of the system. In installations that have light IT loads, the fixed losses of the physical infrastructure equipment commonly exceeds the IT load. Whenever the physical system is oversized, the fixed losses become a larger percentage of the total electrical bill.



Strategic Media Asia (SMA) Limited (www.stmedia-asia.com)

SMA enables individuals working in data centres to improve cost and energy efficiency. Our training seminars and workshops encompass topics associated with new data centre planning and development, and the tuning and operation of existing facilities. Service providers and equipment manufacturers will take a particular interest as the workshop takes into account the full range of technologies used in the data centre environment and its impact in how procurement decisions are made.

IT, Project and Facilities Managers, Designers, Consultants, etc. who are responsible for highly critical systems, like the UPS and CRAC systems, etc., in Data Centre and IT equipments are highly recommended to attend.

Should you have any enquiries, please visit www.stmedia-asia.com/trainings.html or www.stmedia-asia.com/events.html