EDITOR’S QUESTION
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I
n an environment where consumption
of all things appears to be heading
skywards, data use, bandwidth and
storage requirements are right on trend.
With levels of data creation and use now
surpassing zettabytes volumes per year,
the data centre technology suites that
facilitate this compute power need to be
carefully controlled.
From the standpoint of an infrastructure
supplier, today’s discussions with data centre
operators and corporate end-users, with
owned data centre capability, are framed
around increased bandwidth, reduced
latency and energy concerns including lower
power usage and effective climate control to
optimise the compute environment.
Data centre operators are adapting to
a mostly western world view – that data
centres consume massive amounts of energy
and need to be accountable and seen to be
operating in a responsible manner.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
With the mass of experience now
available in the industry, data centres can
be designed to take advantage of the
specific region’s climate, so for example,
in northern Europe, data centres can
operate ‘free-cooling’ of the IT load, which
massively reduces the total energy used in
the facility.
There is also a trend, driven by hyperscale
design, towards solid floor technology suites
which again reduce overall complexity and
allows cooled air to be channelled across the
space into Hot Aisle Containment (HAC) pods.
These cabinets are designed to effectively
draw cool air through the racks across
the hot equipment and then expel the
hot exhaust air into the ceiling void to be
recirculated and cooled once again.
These HAC cabinets ensure hot and cool
air remain separated and do not mix and
contaminate the input flow, which could
raise the operating temperature.
Using refrigerated cooling systems to
maintain the IT load will certainly require
higher energy use and therefore increase
capital cost and operational cost. Often
refrigerated cooling systems require more
energy to operate than the technology
space compute equipment it is serving.
This approach aligns with ASHRAE TC9.9
recommendations which specify higher
equipment operating temperatures, while
remaining within the manufacturers’
warranty specifications and also reducing
energy use.
Advances in computation flow dynamics
(CFD) in the design of technology suites
greatly assists layout and management.
Developments in server, storage, switch
and infrastructure technology, including
cabling and racks, together with intelligent
monitoring systems and millions of hours
of facility analysis allows energy efficient
systems to dramatically reduce operational
expenditure. New technologies benefit the
operator and user with cheaper energy
costs and higher performance solutions.
This also offers the operator and customers
the cachet of sustainability, low PUE and
increased eco-friendliness.
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