Schneider Electric introduced two new modules (one for power and one for cooling) for the EMEA region at this week's DataCenterDynamics CONVERGED conference in London.

The DataCenterDynamics CONVERGED conference was held this week in London, with two days of panels and presentations from Google, eBay, Cisco and many others. See the DCD news section for details of the presentations. There were also product introductions from a number of vendors. Here’s a roundup:

Schneider Introduces New Modules: Global energy management specialist Schneider Electricannounced two new facility module power and cooling solutions for the EMEA region. The new modular units enable data centre power and cooling capacity to be added in 500kW increments, allowing physical infrastructure to be right-sized to the IT load . “Facility modules are a step towards the commoditization of data centre physical infrastructure,” said Tony Day, Director of Data Centre Projects and Professional Services at Schneider Electric said. “Instead of waiting months, customers can expect to deploy additional capacity within weeks. Because Schneider Electric pre-engineer, configure and test facility modules prior to delivery ensuring reliability and efficiency, site installation is also made simpler and speedier, reducing associated costs and the risk of human error.” The Facility Power Modules for EMEA incorporate high efficiency modular UPS, hot-swappable power modules, a segregated battery room, a fully integrated cooling system with free-cooling capability, inert gas fire suppression and aspirating detection system. Modules can be stacked vertically or side by side, and delivered using conventional road transportation methods.

ABB launches new management tool – ABB launched a new management suite for the data center that covers software, hardware and services at DatacenterDynamics CONVERGED. It said the suite uses the access capabilities of ABB’s System 800xA platform as its foundation, which allows it to Decathlon to harmonize a number of IT disciplines to make data centers more reliable, and provide a single view of IT, facilities and energy management across the data center. ABB called Decathlon a Data Center Enterprise Management (DCEM) solution and ABB Control Technologies product manager for data centers Eric Olsen said by using the suite, companies can realize energy savings of between 10 and 50%.

Concurrent Thinking unveils DCIM Product – Concurrent Thinking unveiled its new DCIM products, concurrentCOMMAND and concurrentCONTROL, which offer a solution for optimising the performance of both the physical infrastructure of the data centre and the IT systems operating within it. The Concurrent products provide capabilities for monitoring and managing power at the distribution board, PDU and server level (including power capping); support for environmental sensors; out-of-band server health monitoring; and even OS deployment and performance monitoring. “Our products monitor all aspects of the data centre, offering powerful and intuitive tools for identifying potential energy inefficiencies – whether these relate to high overheads in power and cooling, or stem from poor IT utilisation by server, rack, customer or application,” said Concurrent Thinking CTO, Michael Rudgyard. “Our goal is to offer a 20% saving within the first 12 months for all of our customers, and a complete return on investment in the same period.”

AEG Power Offers New High Efficiency UPS- AEG Power Solutions announced the PROTECT Blue modular UPS family of 3-phase power protection products for data centre and mission critical applications. PROTECT Blue is 95% efficient at only 20% load. The new UPS also provides 99% efficiency when being operated in Eco Mode.”PROTECT Blue has been developed by AEG PS specifically to fulfil the need for high efficiency, high reliability power protection devices for today’s data centre and computer room requirements. PROTECT Blue is a high performance, compact and competitively priced power protection solution,” said Iain Campbell, Business Development Director — UK & Ireland, AEG Power Solutions.The new UPS features 3-level IGBT technology to reduce switching losses, and together with VFI topology and a transformerless design, provides a smaller, lighter and more efficient UPS implementation.

Romonet announces version 2 of Prognose suite.  Predictive modeling software company Romonet announced version 2.0 of its  Prognose software suite.  The company is also announcing three additional components to the suite with Prognose energy, Prognose economics and Prognose enterprise. Prognose 2.0 brings advanced features including the ability to simulate over a full Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) delivering even greater accuracy and climate sensitive analysis of data centers based on their actual or intended geographical location. The new Node Level Resilience (NLR) feature allows users to rapidly model the impact of control system changes reducing the risk of an unexpected behavior impacting data center availability and uptime. “Our clients want to operate data centers that are cost and energy optimized throughout their life cycle,” said Zahl Limbuwala, co-founder and CEO of Romonet. “For us, that means delivering world leading predictive modeling software tools that provide a clear and accurate forecasting of hour-to-hour operational performance, energy usage and total cost of operations for the entire the data center facility.”

• Midwest ISO seeks new home for backup data site. Major power consortium Midwest ISO is looking for a new home for their $35 million backup data site after the Boone County (Indiana) Commissioners voted down their rezoning request for land.  Due to a stipulation from the Department of Homeland Security, Midwest ISO was looking to build its 17-acre, $35 million data center in a rural area, away from major highways, railways and airports.  This is the second time they have been turned down in Boone county. Ten years ago they were turned down when they wanted to build a headquarters near Zionsville.  Midwest ISO recently announced expansion of their headquarters in Carmel, Indiana; investing around $110 million to upgrade computer equipment and adding 70 jobs over the next five years.
• Growth in Michigan for Online Tech.  CEO of Ann Arbor-based Online Technologies Yan Ness credits the cold Michigan temperatures for the continued growth of his business.  Online Tech has three data centers -  a 30,500 square foot facility in Genesee County, 10,500 square feet south of Ann Arbor in Avis Park and the newest facility, 5,000 square feet in down town Ann Arbor. Recently Online Tech won an Ann Arbor SPARK’s Fast Track award for a fourth consecutive year.  The award honors companies that maintain average annual revenue growth of 20% for three consecutive years.
• Texas data center demand outpacing supply. Sheila Bellinger, VP and Southwest director of the Grub & Ellis National Data Center Group spoke at Datacenter Dynamics Dallas Thursday on the topic of supply and demand for data center space in the Dallas-ForthWorth area.  Bellinger noted that about 1.5 million square feet of data center space was absorbed by the Dallas-FortWorth market over the past three years.  Although power costs in the area are expensive, other factors such as fiber-optic infrastructure, favorable regulatory environment and low construction costs are what drives demand.  Bellinger said that Texas is consuming more power than any other state in the U.S.

I am a little bit partial to this last story: Waterloo, Fastest (Internet) Town in the Midwest.  Stacey Higginbotham from GigaOm reports on a local newspaper story about Waterloo Iowa having faster broadband than even the most wired cities.  Mediacom selected Waterloo to (soon) have 105 Mbps cable Internet service on the downlink thanks to the town’s willingness to get involved in bringing better broadband to its residents.

New research from DataCenterDynamics brings together snapshots from major data center markets around the U.S. throughout 2007, and provides interesting insight into the leading areas of concern and opportunity. The research, gathered at DataCenterDynamics events, provides individual market reports for New York/New Jersey, the Washington DC area, San Francisco/Bay Area, Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and Chicago.

DataCenterDynamics says the results suggest that about $6 billion was invested in U.S. data centers in the past 12 months, while $8 billion in spending is likely in the next 12 months. The individual market reporting the strongest expected data center investment was New York, where demand is driven by financial institutions represented at the DataCenterDynamics event.

The survey found that the average American data center facility has an average power use of 5.5kW per rack, with a maximum rack load of 11.6kW. That’s slightly higher than the power usage in Europe, where the average company-wide average is 4.1 kW and the maximum was 10.1 kW a rack.

The report, US Datacenter Infrastructure Trends and Market Attitudes, is the second in a series of regional reports tracking the changing investment landscape and the uptake of new technologies by datacenter operators. The full report can be purchased online at the DataCenterDynamics web site.

There are also several sessions on practical approaches to environmentally-aware green data centers, including facilities that qualify for the The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, the national benchmark for the design and construction of green buildings.

In 2006 DataCenterDynamics held 13 conferences worldwide, with 5,194 data center professionals attending. Its New York event in March featured a strong showing of attendees from the financial community. The 2007 schedule includes events in San Francisco (July 13), Chicago (Sept. 12) and Dallas (Dec. 6).

On Tuesday, HP blade system infrastructure technologist Ken Baker briefed attendees at DataCenterDynamics 2007 in New York on the capabilities of Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC). Baker said HP is currently implementing DSC at the six new data centers it is building in Atlanta, Austin and Houston as part of a massive consolidation of its worldwide data centers. “We’re going to eat our own dog food on this, because we really believe in it,” said Baker, who said early estimates suggest DSC could save the company about $8 million in power and cooling costs in just one of its new 100,000 square foot facilities in Austin.

Dynamic Smart Cooling is designed to provide precise targeting of air-conditioning systems in response to changes in server temperatures. The system deploys sensors throughout the data center, which communicate with the AC systems. The “smart” piece is the system’s use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to understand the flow of air within the data center and route the cold air to the hot server. HP says the approach can cut cooling costs by 20 to 45 percent as it turns AC systems on or off as temperatures rise and fall.

Baker said HP spent a lot of time investigating its cooling options while contemplating DSC. “We tried a lot of different technologies,” Baker said. “At the end of the day, good old air fan cooling has proven to be the way to go in most cases.”

Data center operators spent more than $10 billion on cooling in 2005, according to IDC data. Baker said cooling can represent 63% of data center power spending. “As an industry, we are being beaten on every day to become more efficient because we are beginning to exceed capacities in the buildings where this equipment needs to go,” he said. “Our attention is now focused beyond the chassis and into the data center in itself.

“CFD modeling has been around for four or five years and it’s a good tool,” said Baker. “The problem is that it’s a snapshot; a point in time. Dynamic Smart cooling offers a real-time demographic model of the facility. The purpose is to manage inlet temperatures within a set range. (AC) capacity is adjusted on-the-fly, and if we lose in the air handler, we can sense it immediately and react immediately.”

A benefit of DSC, Baker said, is that it will allow data center operators to pinpoint any overlap of cooling zones from individual computer room air conditioner (CRAC) units, allowing for adjustments to prevent separate CRAC units from cooling the same space twice. “I think we all intuitively know there are overlaps,” said Baker. “We just don’t know where they are. With our sensor network we can see it, and react immediately.”

When pressed about pricing, Baker said HP had not finalized its pricing but “our target is a three year ROI (return on investment).” Baker said HP is currently working with Liebert and Siemens as its primary partners DSC, and asked for feedback on which other vendor products HP should look at when writing new drivers for interdependencies with third-party equipment.

“In the New York area, multiple data centers are looking at including liquid cooling as an option,” said Schmidt, who led a session on liquid cooling in Tuesday’s event at the New York Hilton. Schmidt said many companies are “running out of room to ventilate racks in a data center. The next step is to put liquid cooling next to the rack. There’s definitely improved energy efficiency, and it’s a lot easier to pump liquid than to pump air to where it’s needed.”

The panel was part of a full day of information sessions at DataCenterDynamics, which was marking its fifth year in New York. The NYC show is one of 22 industry events DataCenterDynamics has on this year’s schedule.

Schmidt heads the committee developing best practices for liquid cooling through ASHRAE, the global standards body for the HVAC industry. Schmidt’s committee, known as TC9.9, recently published Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers. “The book incorporates the experience of liquid cooling from the mainframe days,” says Schmidt. “Liquid cooling is a proven technology, and the book provides a good central source of liquid cooling information from the datacom equipment to the facility level.”

In his session at DataCenterDynamics, Schmidt discussed some of the finer points of liquid cooling, including piping concerns and additional equipment requirements. “You have to worry about condensation, the dew point in the room, and the chemistry of the water,” said Schmidt, who recommended using a corrosion inhibitor to coat copper piping, and the use of distilled water. Many systems also employ a cooling distribution unit (CDU), contributing another acronym to the industry glossary. “The CDU is a buffer in between the equipment and the chilled water system, providing flexibility with coolant and temperature control,” said Schmidt.

It’s been five years since cooling vendors began promoting liquid cooling products as the solution to rising heat loads in the data center. Those vendors have been proven correct in their prediction that high density hotspots would test the upper limits of air cooling capabilities. But despite widespread concern about heat loads and cooling costs, liquid cooling systems are widely discussed and lightly implemented. Schmidt believes that will change.

“You can’t get enough airflow at the tile to satisfy the rack,” he said. “You can’t cool it properly, and what people are doing is not keeping their rack full.”

An ongoing discussion point is “data center hydrophobia”

“The indefinite postponement of larger shows like COMDEX provides a strong illustration that the market has moved towards more focused trade show model,” said George Rockett, Conference Director, DatacenterDynamics. “Certainly in the technology sector, we have found that exhibitors and attendees are questioning why they should support shows which have broad appeal, when a targeted regional or technology-specific approach helps them speak to a more focused audience. With footfall at many technology exhibitions generally on the decline, the expansion of this years’ event program would indicate that niche conferences like DatacenterDynamics is where the market is heading.”

DatacenterDynamics aims to educate and inform professionals involved in the design, build, management and operation of datacenters. Since the first event held in London in 2002, the event program has successfully expanded year on year. DatacenterDynamics events have been held in London, New York, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Chicago, Amsterdam and Hong Kong where they have successfully brought together the leading mechanical & electrical engineers, facilities executives, IT directors & integrators and industry specific vendors whose responsibilities include the uptime of their essential computing resources.