Align Your Data Center and Business Goals

Without a high-performance data center, business can quickly come to a grinding halt. No longer just a building full of systems, the data center is now the cornerstone for delivering the services that drive fundamental business operations. As every company knows, uninterrupted IT service is mission-critical, and disruptions can result in severe financial loss. This case study from Aperture, a brand of Emerson Network Power, shows how leading enterprises optimize data center operations.

The pressures on the data center continue to mount with competing demands to improve service levels, reduce operations and energy costs and meet stringent regulations. At the same time, aging data centers, heterogeneous equipment, intelligent systems, high density operation, virtualization and other sophisticated technologies ratchet up the complexity of managing the physical infrastructure.

No Harmony in Harmonics

Harmonic currents generated by non-linear electronic loads increase power system heat losses and power bills for data center operators. These harmonic-related losses reduce system efficiency, cause apparatus overheating, and increase power and air conditioning costs. As the number of harmonics-producing loads has increased in the date center, it has become increasingly necessary to address their influence when making any additions or changes to an IT installation.

This Harmonics white paper from Eaton looks at:

• The trouble with harmonics in modern power systems
• Solutions to compensate for and reduce harmonics
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• Phase Change Cooling for Service Providers

  February 2nd, 2010 : Kevin Normandeau

  In a typical data center power consumption profile, approximately 45% of data center power actually drives the IT load. The cooling infrastructure accounts for another 45% to keep the equipment cool. As such, cooling the equipment can be just as costly as the actual running of the IT equipment. With increased demands on data centers, cooling costs threaten to become an even larger portion of an organization’s operating expenses. This white paper from Alcatel-Lucent shows how to reduce cooling costs and substantially reduce energy expenses.

  As service providers and other organizations take steps to ensure competitiveness in a challenging market, many are examining new approaches to data center cooling technology. Current heat exchange methods for cooling data centers are inherently inefficient in meeting the requirements imposed by today’s dense, high-speed computing equipment, and they can contribute considerable expense as well. By implementing a solution that aligns with a range of business initiatives — including cost-effective operation, optimization of energy efficiencies, reduced management complexity, and the need to meet green computing initiatives — service providers can address these
  challenges and extend their competitive advantage.

  This paper examines a new approach to data center cooling known as “phase change” or “two-phase” low-pressure pumped refrigerant cooling. It details the advantages of this approach over traditional computer room air conditioning (CRAC) methods, and it identifies the specific benefits — from lower OPEX and reduced energy requirements to optimized utilization of data center space — that service providers can realize.

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• Emerging UPS Standby Power Sources

  January 12th, 2010 : Kevin Normandeau

  Four Promising Alternatives to the Lead Acid Battery. Though an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) performs many important functions, most users value them chiefly for the emergency energy they provide during a power outage. UPSs give IT personnel the time they need to protect sensitive equipment and data from the effects of an electrical service interruption by shutting down systems in an orderly fashion or starting a backup generator. This white paper from Eaton discusses how a viable alternative to the lead acid battery is closer than ever before.

  Today, most UPS products use lead acid batteries to store emergency standby power. A proven technology with many decades of successful service in a variety of industrial settings, the lead acid battery remains the most cost-effective energy storage solution as measured by dollars per minute of backup time.

  Yet despite these merits, lead acid batteries are unpopular among data center managers due to their size, weight, maintenance requirements, toxic contents and relatively short lifespan, among other issues.

  As a result, UPS makers have long been searching for an alternative standby power technology that’s smaller, simpler and “greener” than lead acid batteries, yet no more expensive to operate.

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• Seven Ways to Extend Power and Cooling in the Data Center

  January 6th, 2010 : Kevin Normandeau

  Is your data center running out of power or cooling? This Eaton white paper offer insights on how to extend the sytems you already have and helps you build an optimal plan.

  To keep pace with business demands, data centers pack in more power-hungry, heat generating IT systems than ever. Many power and cooling systems are reaching their limits. Older power protection, power distribution and HVAC systems could be bottlenecks to needed expansion. Since these support systems represent 40 percent of the cost of IT equipment, a wholesale upgrade is generally not an option.
  So, what is the best way to augment and extend existing capacity within the constraints of tight budgets and limited support staff? How can you establish a power and cooling infrastructure that is ready for growth but not over-provisioned for an uncertain future?
  The solution. This white paper offers strategies that enable IT managers to:

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• Data Center of the Future: A Virtual Trade Show

  December 14th, 2009 : Kevin Normandeau

  Cisco and its partners invite you to register today for a Data Center of the Future live virtual trade show on December 15 and 16, 2009. Throughout this two-day live event, you’ll be able to learn what the future of the data center might look like from the perspectives of networking, storage, applications, and physical infrastructure technology partners.

  Whether you’re just starting out on the journey – looking for cost effective ways to get more out of your current data center – or whether you’re already well down the virtualization track and thinking about how to deploy a Private Cloud or IT as a Service, there is valuable information for all.

  Register here and join other IT and data center decision makers in this unique virtualized trade show environment.

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• Is Your Data Center Draining Your Bottom Line?

  November 30th, 2009 : Kevin Normandeau

  Data center energy costs as a percent of total revenue are at an all time high. In fact, energy costs are emerging as the second highest operating cost in the IT organization, behind labor. A typical one-megawatt data center consumes 16 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year—roughly equivalent to the energy consumed by 1400 average U.S. households.

  This white paper looks at two key ways that data center managers can improve end­-to-­end energy efficiency: by changing the voltage of power distribution and by taking advantage of new, high-efficiency, multi-mode uninterruptible power systems (UPSs).

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• The Business Value of Green Data Centers

  November 19th, 2009 : Kevin Normandeau

  Today, policy and business leaders are reaching a consensus that industry must address rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly in the data center. Leading enterprises are now turning to the practical challenge of determining how, how much, and at what cost to reduce emissions. In a recent white paper from IDC many companies are learning that their data center offers a means to both abate GHG and reduce costs with the right incremental capital investments.

  The process of improving information technology and data center efficiency not only reduces GHG emissions but also reduces cost for the enterprise. This means that the savings or business value derived from improvements far outstrips the incremental capital costs of “greening” the datacenter. Green IT means business improvement. Firms that rank highest among the “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World,” such as Amazon, Toyota, and Nike, have realized that focusing on limiting energy calories in the datacenter and elsewhere pays profitability dividends on the financial side. IDC research indicates that companies reducing their metric tons of carbon per datacenter workload by a factor of 55% also incurred 35% less cost per user session on a server.

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• Right-Sizing Your Power Infrastructure

  October 29th, 2009 : Kevin Normandeau

  This new Eaton white paper explores strategies to optimize energy efficiency in the data center without impeding growth

  Data centers today are undergoing unprecedented change, as new technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing, and voice over IP help lower operating cost, conserve floor space and simplify management.

  Yet those same technologies are also impacting the data center power chain in significant and varying ways. Some companies, for example, consolidated their servers only to find themselves with more energy and cooling capacity than they need. Others installed hot, high¬ density blade servers only to find themselves with less power than they require.

  To compound matters, now is an especially poor time to bear the burdens of an oversized or undersized power infrastructure. With margins tight and energy costs rising, no company can afford to spend more than necessary on its electrical systems. Yet with IT playing a vital role in business success, organizations must also ensure that they have enough clean, reliable power to keep mission¬ critical systems continuously available.

  Now more than ever, businesses need a power infrastructure that’s right ¬sized to their precise energy requirements. This white paper discusses the ways in which new technologies are impacting power demand patterns, explores the consequences of having too much power capacity or too little and then provides concrete advice on strategies for right¬sizing your power systems. Click here to download this free white paper for Eaton.

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