Energy consumption control for data center storage

The focus of the enterprise is always to save energy http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/7208.html "> Improve efficiency. The energy cost of the server occupies most of the total energy consumption of the whole data center, and the energy consumption is the most important focus. Because the organization has multiple storage arrays of thousands of disks, storage can have a huge impact on the use of the data Center for energy.

This paper describes the energy consumption and cooling requirements of the server from various perspectives and solutions.

Planning and positioning for the current storage in data center facilities

There may be a small percentage of the impact stored in the data center, and it may also have a significant impact. This depends entirely on the type of organization and the type of storage used. If it's a tape-based facility--and there's a lot of work going on--space needs are obvious, and energy and thermal load can be extremely low and even negligible. But talking about disk-based storage--We discuss the focus on energy consumption and thermal load--instead of tape, disk storage can have a significant impact on energy consumption and thermal load.

In general, the spatial requirements in the datacenter are completely negligible compared to the energy consumption and thermal load, the latter being the focus. Many companies believe that the overall load is too high. Users also tend to think they already have much more storage than they did in previous years, and indeed they do. But when you look at today's storage density, you'll find that these massive amounts of data can be packaged and stored in a cabinet.

Not long ago, the storage space on G was considered to be a massive storage space, and today our slim notebook has so much capacity that we can even put it in our pockets and carry it with us! I have a small but fast growing customer, He has been worried about his storage needs--fearing that the data centers don't have enough resources for them--so we did a positive and detailed calculation, and concluded that the resources needed for the next five years would not be more than one cabinet. But we have another user who needs to store data for judicial audits. Almost 25% of the floor space is used to place storage arrays, consuming 27% of the energy and cooling load throughout the project, and the density is very high, averaging 12 to 15KW. The difference is huge.

Of course, we've also seen growth in data center storage requirements, in large part because of server virtualization, partly because of the need to enhance data retention and protection, and because more business applications create more data.

Future changes in storage requirements and new strategies to address future storage issues

This is a complex problem in some ways, but the answer is that storage growth depends on your actual needs, and it's quite bizarre to hook up one problem with another. We will never be able to draw a conclusion on this.

Looking back on the years before--I can talk about it--when paper folders are full of files and no longer able to store files, we find ways to discard old or unwanted files. In a paperless society-I suggest using this word because it's now more than just copying or printing more than before-we only need to buy more storage. And we can't really believe in electronic storage--like keeping files in a metal file box--and we're backing them up. And most people will tell you to "back up one more," because according to Murphy's law, when the first backup is broken, the second one is often damaged.

Not only that, most of our data-most of it is in the form of electronic files-all content is backed up two times. And we don't have time to clean up and delete files that are no longer in use. Or these files can be continuously forwarded, including all attachments.

In fact, file collation and removal is relatively easy compared to paper materials, because you can scan the contents of the page by quickly flipping and viewing it, and removing unwanted items. But electronic documents, as we know, are intangible. Without explicitly naming, we need to select, click, read, slide wheel, read, close, delete, confirm--so repeatedly.

We send thousands of documents every day, so what do we do? We can only save, keep saving. A technology similar to automatic thin configuration and data deduplication can help control storage growth.

Today's organization deals with storage energy and cooling requirements

Data deduplication can improve the problem, but it only involves a small number of things, generally reducing the total amount of storage-or slowing storage growth. The storage energy consumption and thermal load density did not change. According to current forecasts, the use of solid-state hard disk storage was increased in 2012 and into disk storage devices, but we found that users did not have much interest in this. It is clear that solid-state drives require less space and less to coax, but prices are still high and enterprise applications have not treated solid-state drives as reliable storage devices.

However, according to their own actual situation, still can foresee good news. Rotating disks seem to have reached their speed limit. Meaning that they can run faster and need to use more energy, so storage developers think they have reached the limit of speed. We might find ways to keep the disk more space, in other words, save more on a given disk surface--but if we make them spin faster, even increasing the storage density does not make any difference in power and heat load.

So we may now have reached a stable disk density. Yes, we will have to use more space to pass the power and heat load, but it does not look like we have to handle more high-density power and heat load per cabinet. I think if you already have enough space, this can be considered good news.

Store management methods for current data centers--large storage user deployment cooling Technology

The hot Channel/cold Channel type containment method is ideal for current storage planning because the so-called "high-density storage" actually has only medium-density energy and cooling load, according to today's definition. There is also a well-known storage system-the primary storage System-14 Shing 2PB storage, power consumption of less than 80-kilowatt. It is now less than 12 tons to cool the entire 2 PB array. It is not a huge amount to provide it. The load was quite consistent-they averaged 6-kilowatt less overhead than the average cabinet, and there was no extra load on one of the cabinets.

Because the overhead is not very large, the legacy problem has not been adjusted too much, and we are trying to stop using it, although many people are still using it. When the cabinet is deployed as usual, the energy cost is 80-09 watts per square foot. In the final analysis, landscape cooling power and thermal load have grown dramatically over the past few years, and use decent floor air flow and suppression systems--I don't recommend floor design, but I have to admit that most people still use the system--using a decent layer of air cooling and suppression systems, although the cooling effect is fine, but honestly, If you encounter this high density equipment situation today, you will start to question the previous cooling design time reasonable.

Best practices for mitigating power costs and cooling data center storage requirements

Any form of cooling today. Be sure to control the air. You just mentioned air suppression, but not completely suppressed. Only a semi-suppressed condition--the glue strip can accomplish this task very well. You don't need to build another room in the room to do the cooling. But you need to control the return air--this is the key to cooling the heat problem.

Need to be responsible for disturbing the causes of good air transmission. Because storage is actually just a medium-density thermal load, as we say, if we introduce a high-density cabinet into the environment, Then the load per cabinet may rise by only 12 to 15KW. So it is important to set up a designated storage area within the data center to ensure the load and cooling quality of the storage area by setting the appropriate cooling plan and air control according to the cooling requirements of the area designed.

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(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)