Data center energy saving begins with energy assessment

UPS's energy-saving operation for the data center began in 2007, when Joe Parrino, a data center equipment Management manager, attended a meeting to explore how to cope with the high cost of power in the data center. At the meeting, some people suggested that the energy consumption of the data center must be measured and analyzed first, Parrino is very inspired. Shortly after the meeting, Parrino decided to analyze the energy consumption of two major UPS data centers.

After analysis, also quickly found a can improve the place: room 65 air-conditioning. Some of these pdus are damaged, causing some of the cold air to not enter the designated cabinet, thus making this part of the energy wasted. Parrino to the cold wind in the room and cabinet in the direction of the redesign, replaced the damaged pipe, and tested to ensure that the room equipment will not overheat, the shutdown of the 24 air-conditioning.

By hindsight, these measures help ups save 16 million degrees a year (about 125,000 dollars). Furthermore, UPS evaluates and calculates the entire company's mechanical refrigeration system, and plans for energy conservation, averaging 100,000 dollars a year. Today's UPS data centers have less than half the cost of refrigeration compared to data centers of comparable size.

Two methods of energy efficiency assessment

UPS this case is not a case, many data centers through the calculation to find the main link of energy conservation, and then targeted to take measures to achieve a very good effect.

However, for most IT departments, the motivation is not high. In Http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13534.html ">forrester analyst Doug Washburn, the main reason is that less than 11% The IT department is responsible for operating cost management related to electricity consumption (electricity bills are usually given to the equipment management department). It is a little comforting to have a growing number of companies that are now asking CIOs to lower their electricity. To this end, a number of new indicators and methods have been proposed to help CIOs find out where the data centers can save energy, although there are objections to some indicators.

At the end of 2008, uptime Cato, a data Center research Institute, presented an indicator of the efficiency of energy use-the overall average efficiency of the data centre (Corporate Average Datacenter Efficiency, CADE), The calculation method is to use the efficiency of some technology to multiply the physical equipment. Specific to it efficiency calculations, the approach is to use the utilization of IT assets to multiply the efficiency of the equipment, in which the efficiency of the equipment is calculated by multiplying the energy efficiency of the building with the space it occupies. Higher numbers mean higher energy utilization in data centers.

Power Usage Effectiveness,pue is another indicator, presented by the Green Grid organization, the Web. The green Grid is an organization made up of technical companies dedicated to improving energy efficiency in data centers.

Pue is calculated by dividing the total power of the data center by the amount of electricity consumed by it devices, such as switches, servers, routers, and other related devices. Lower values mean higher energy efficiency.

Although these methods are effective, Forrester's Washburn warns that there are difficulties in real computing, since most companies do not separately compute the cost of electricity in the IT department, and they do not make a careful calculation of electricity, so data such as the energy efficiency needed for the calculation are often lacking.