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February 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Web host The Planet reaps big savings on small changes

Jeff Lowenberg, VP of facilities at Web-hosting company The Planet, can attest to the sweetness of low-hanging green fruit. By spending around $50,000 and three months' time implementing relatively simple best practices for datacenter cooling, he's found a way to save his company an estimated $1 million in power costs this year alone.

"It's like found money," says Lowenberg, expressing surprise at the success of the company's green initiative in its Houston, Texas, facility. "The results have been phenomenal, much more than I expected."

This story of sustainability doesn't begin with aspirations of a cleaner, greener plant; rather, it's firmly rooted in a practical business conundrum that many a datacenter admin no doubt faces: "We had some areas in a couple of datacenters that were warmer than we wanted them to be. All of the CRAC units were running at 100 percent, but there were some areas that weren't getting cool enough," Lowenberg says.

Based on his calculations, though, the amount of cooling in place should have done the job. Seeking guidance, he headed to some Uptime Institute seminars and came away with potent new tricks for beating the datacenter heat.

Rather than cutting energy consumption and cooling costs by grappling with complex virtualization implementations or ripping and replacing old servers and CRAC units, The Planet's facilities took simpler, lower-tech measures. Those steps included rearranging floor tiles to better manage cold airflow; installing seals and grommets in the ceilings, walls, and floors to reduce bypass airflow; installing blanking plates in server cabinets to direct airflow more efficiently; and sealing power distribution units to reduce bypass airflow.

The aforementioned tactics ensured that cool air was going to only where it was needed: the server intakes. "Most datacenters are too cold. Ours were certainly that way. [On the high end], it shouldn't be more than 77 degrees with 45 percent relative humidity. Most datacenters are much cooler than that, but being cooler than that doesn't help your equipment," Lowenberg says.

Six months later, the company finds that its efforts have paid off substantially. Even though critical server loads increased by 5 percent, the facility's overall cooling power needs dropped by 31 percent. When The Planet has finished implementing these changes company-wide at its five other datacenters, it expects to lower its energy use by 13.5 percent, and will save at least $1 million in 2008 alone.

Contributing to those savings, Lowenberg was able to shut off four CRAC units in the Houston facility, but more recently, he found he could power down five more. "I think when we look at these measurements over the next few months, we'll have an even bigger increase in savings," he says.

Through the effort, The Planet also improved its "coefficient of efficiency," an EPA- and Uptime Institute-recognized measurement of the total power necessary to operate a datacenter divided by critical power. The company's previous score was 2.0, considered "good"; now it's 1.7, which is nearly ideal.

In addition to padding the company's bottom line, the new energy savings means more growth potential for The Planet. "What this will allow us to do with our future expansion is go to a larger footprint with the same amount of power and cooling," he says.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 21, 2008 03:00 AM

February 13, 2008 | Comments: (0)

HP makes MCS liquid-cooling rack twice a nice

HP MCS G2 HP has made a clever upgrade to its Modular Cooling System (MCS) liquid-cooling rack. In its previous iteration, the unit was designed to chill a single rack packed with high-density machines. However, the company found that many customers weren't packing enough processing power into racks to take advantage of the MCS unit's full 35kW of cooling power.

With the new G2 version, however, customers will have a way: Thanks to bi-directional cooling technology (including three additional hot-swappable fans), MCS G2 can simultaneously cool two server racks at up to 17.5KW, or concentrate up to 35KW to cool a single rack. The machine's form factor and power draw remain the same, however.

HP says the water-cooled MCS reduces datacenter cooling costs by containing between 95 and 97 percent of heat inside server racks "while supporting up to three times the kilowatt capacity of a traditional, air-cooled rack."

More information is available at the HP site.

Posted by Ted Samson on February 13, 2008 10:23 AM

January 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Digital Realty to host free datacenter-cooling seminars

Cooling is a piping-hot topic among datacenter operators who are struggling to control costs and reduce energy waste. Plenty of vendors are touting state-of-the-art cooling technologies, which certainly have their place in the big chill picture. However, in addition to some relatively simple tips, there's an abundance of best practices companies can adopt to quickly realize greater efficiency and lower bills.

Those best practices will be the focus of a series of free, two-day seminars hosted by Digital Realty Trust, an owner and manager of corporate datacenters and Internet gateways. At the seminars, dubbed "Everything You Need to Know About Datacenter Cooling," three industry experts will dispense their knowledge.

The experts include:
-- Robert "Dr. Bob" F. Sullivan, Ph.D., the Uptime Institute's datacenter cooling expert, who originated the concept of hot-aisle-cold-aisle datacenter design

-- Dr. Amir Radmehr, an extensively published datacenter cooling expert from Innovative Research

-- Jim Smith, vice president of engineering at Digital Realty Trust, a recognized authority on efficient datacenter operations and green datacenter design

I can certainly attest to Jim's wealth of knowledge on the subject; I had a chance to interview him last year. He'll be giving a talk on the green datacenter at the InfoWorld Virtualization Executive Forum in San Francisco next month.

As for the datacenter cooling seminars, the schedule is as follows:
-- San Francisco Bay Area, February 26-27
-- Dublin, April 16-17
-- New York City, May 21-22
-- Chicago, June 18-19

Further information about the seminars is available at the Digital Realty Trust Web site.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on January 17, 2008 01:19 PM

November 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Emerson delivers free Energy Logic blueprint for building a power-efficient datacenter

the path to green efficiency How-to guides are downright handy for tackling daunting projects, such as deploying a new BPM (business process management) solution or building a birdhouse (one of those really fancy ones with indoor plumbing).

One of the most daunting tasks that companies face today is figuring out how to wring greater energy efficiency out of their datacenters. Certainly, many vendors are ready to step up and demonstrate where their respective products fit into the power-saving puzzle. But there's something to be said for a vendor-neutral blueprint to plan the overall task.

That all is a wordy lead-in to pointing you to a new report -- available as a free download -- released today by Emerson Network Power. It's titled "Energy Logic: Reducing Data Center Energy Consumption by Creating Savings that Cascade Across Systems," and it's an impressive piece of work, outlining ten interrelated technology strategies that comprise a holistic approach to improving datacenter energy efficiency by as much as 50 percent, according to the company. And as I noted, it's free.

For a little background, Emerson has coined the term "Energy Logic" in this report, a strategy which, according to the company, "centers on 'the cascade effect' by which one watt saved at the processor level can save an average total of 2.84 watts in energy consumption."

The report starts at the server component level, outlining the benefits of low-power processors. "Independent research studies show these lower-power processors deliver the same performance as higher power models," the report says. "In the 5,000-square-foot datacenter modeled for this paper, low-power processors create a 10 percent reduction in overall datacenter power consumption."

Next up: power supplies. The report notes that most power supplies found in servers are working at around 72 percent effiency -- yet "best-in-class power supplies are available today that deliver efficiency of 90 percent. Use of these power supplies reduces power draw within the data center by 124 kW or 11 percent of the 1127 kW total," the report says.

From there, the report suggests that datacenter operators look at power-management software. Despite the fact that processors have built-in power-management features, they end up disabled for fear of crippling response time. Yet "in idle mode, most servers consume between 70 and 85 percent of full operational power."

The Emerson Energy Logic report suggests that admins reconsider how they use power-management features. In the 5,000 square foot datacenter model, the report says that using power-management features can reduce peak power draw from 80 percent to 45 percent, saving "an additional 86 kW or eight percent of the unoptimized datacenter load."

Blade servers have a role to play in the energy-efficient datacenter, according to the Emerson report. "Blade servers consume about 10 percent less power than equivalent rack-mount servers because multiple servers share common power supplies, cooling fans and other components. ... More importantly, blades facilitate the move to a high-density data center architecture, which can significantly reduce energy consumption."

Moving on, Emerson's Energy Logic strategy highlights server virtualization. In the 5,000 square foot model, "assuming 25 percent of servers are virtualized with eight non-virtualized physical servers being replaced by one virtualized physical server, ... virtualization provides an incremental eight percent reduction in total datacenter power," according to the report.

No. 6 on Emerson's energy-efficiency menu for datacenters: best cooling practices. That includes "sealing gaps in floors, using blanking panels in open spaces in racks, and avoiding mixing of hot and cold air." This is low-hanging fruit that requires no additional technology investment but can result in a five percent efficiency boost, based, again, on the 5,000 square foot datacenter model.

415V AC power distribution is the next strategy component in Emerson's Energy Logic scheme. The short of it is, most UPS systems are rather inefficient, as they convert incoming power to DC and then back to AC within the UPS. "In most datacenters, the UPS provides power at 480V, which is then stepped down via a transformer, with accompanying losses, to 208V in the power distribution system," according to the report. "These stepdown losses can be eliminated by converting UPS output power to 415V." The result: "an incremental two percent reduction in facility energy use" in the 5,000 square foot model.

Cooling reappears in the report next, specifically variable capacity cooling. "Typically, CRAC [computer room air conditioners] fans run at a constant speed and deliver a constant volume of air flow. Converting these fans to variable frequency drive fans allows fan speed and power draw to be reduced as load decreases," the report says. Emerson specifically cites digital scroll compressors here, which "allow the capacity of room air conditioners to be matched exactly to room conditions without turning compressors on and off."

The payoff: "A 20 percent reduction in fan speed provides almost 50 percent savings in fan-power consumption."

Ninth in the Emerson Energy Logic lineup is, lo, another cooling strategy: high-density supplemental cooling. Datacenter operators are cramming more machines into their facility, and CRAC systems alone can't handle the extra heat. "Supplemental cooling units are mounted above or alongside equipment racks, and pull hot air directly from the hot aisle and deliver cold air to the cold aisle," the report explains. These units can reduce cooling costs by 30 percent, Emerson reports.

Last but not least, there's monitoring and optimization. With varying types of hardware spread out around the datacenter, cooling can prove inefficient. "Cooling control systems can monitor conditions across the datacenter and coordinate the activities of multiple units to prevent conflicts and increase teamwork," the report says. "In the model, an incremental saving of one percent is achieved as a result of system-level monitoring and control."

There's plenty more information to be gleaned from Emerson's 21-page Energy Logic report, along with helpful charts and diagrams to help datacenter operators as they venture toward a greener, more sustainable facility.

Did I mention the report is available as a free download? Get it right here.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog, tracking trends toward greener, more energy-efficient IT. Subscribe to his free Green Tech newsletter here.

Posted by Ted Samson on November 29, 2007 10:02 AM

August 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Chillin' at the HP datacenter

A tour of HP's test lab datacenter reveals the company's Dynamic Smart Cooling initiative

Call me an environmentalist. Call me frugal. Or call me a glutton for punishment. I don't like turning on the air conditioning in my house here in Sacramento unless I absolutely have to (when the temperatures hit the 100s, for instance, as they did earlier this summer). My preferred method to beat the heat: Depending on what room I'm in, I'll turn on the fan that happens to be pointed in my general direction. It often gets the job done, and it's less expensive than cranking up the A/C to full blast.

The average server rack, however, doesn't have the luxury of flipping on the nearest cooling apparatus if it's getting too hot. So the traditional practice has been for datacenter operators to crank up the CRAC (computer room air conditioning) to the point where it feels like a meat locker.

That practice ensures that the hottest-running machines in the joint don't combust in a fiery explosion of hardware parts and mission-critical data. And even with best practices in place, that blanket-of-cold approach is wasteful from a "dear Lord, look at this month's energy bill" perspective.

InfoWorld:Chillin' with HP, sustainable it, ted samson But there's been some evolution in CRAC technology aimed at easing the pain. HP, for example, has been busily building on its Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC) technology to help datacenter operators more efficiently chill their hardware on a more granular level, an approach the company says can deliver 20- to 45-percent energy cost savings. That could mean a cool million, depending on how large your facility is. And I had a chance to see DSC in action recently as I took a guided video tour of the datacenter at HP's test labs in Palo Alto, Calif., led by HP Fellow Chandrakant Patel, one of the DSC developers.

On the tour, I got to see the rows of server racks in HP's datacenter, all busily humming away -- yet the facility itself was surprisingly warm. (Patel likened it to summer in San Francisco, but really, I think it was warmer than that.) That's the magic of DSC: Affixed to every rack were small, black DSC sensors, which collected air-temperature measurements in real time and delivered them to the DSC's control node. In response to the readings, the system adjusts cooling, not of the entire facility, but rather just the area of the datacenter where a rack is running especially hot. And after that rack cools down, the CRAC unit for that region adjusts accordingly.

One of the cool tricks with the DSC, according to Patel: You can check on the temperature of your datacenter facility from anywhere, which is a mixed blessing if you're on a much-needed vacation in Tahiti and get an SMS about an overheating episode.

Patel also told me about HP's recently unveiled Thermal Assessment Services (TAS). Through TAS, HP measures a datacenter's thermal conditions to assist customers with planning server-rack placement. By knowing, for example, which regions of the facility get the most cool air, a datacenter admin could know the optimal location for the highest-utilized and hottest-running server racks.

Depending on how much a company is willing to shell out, a TAS assessment could include generating a "thermal zone map," a three-dimensional model depicting how much and where datacenter air conditioners are cooling.

As HP describes it, the maps can help datacenter operators see, for example, where there's over-provisioning or redundancy in cooling coverage in the room.

I don't want to give away everything in the video, but I will add that Patel shared with me an interesting chip-cooling technology that HP is working on called ink-jet cooling. It borrows from the technology behind ink-jet printers, but rather than showering paper with ink, small components within servers would shower chips with coolant, as needed. Time will tell just how effective this will be. I wonder about adding yet another delicate part to a server that can break.

Anyway, enjoy the video. Patel's a very engaging, eloquent, and erudite fellow.

Posted by Ted Samson on August 23, 2007 03:00 AM

August 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Sun celebrates green datacenter innovations and tools

As part of its Eco Innovation Initiative, Sun shined a green-hued spotlight on its massive datacenter consolidation efforts yesterday and unveiled a host of tools and services to help datacenter operators inject some energy-efficiency and eco-friendliness into their own facilities.

At a high level, Sun's boasting significant benefits from the massive undertaking, most of which affected its datacenters in Santa Clara, Calif., but also its Blackwater, UK, and Bangalore, India sites.

In Phase One of the project at its Santa Clara site, Sun consolidated 2,177 servers down to 1,240. For example, they replaced 88 Sun Fire V880 systems with 58 Sun Fire T2000 and T1000 systems yielding a 91 percent reduction in datacenter floor space and a 60 percent reduction in power costs.

The company also consolidated 738 storage devices down to 225; and 550 racks down to 65 (reaping 88 percent compression of square footage). Power-wise, the company is shrinking consumption from 2.2MW to 500KW, which will result in an estimated $1.1 million cost savings per year.

In Phase Two, which entailed a new datacenter design, build-out and deployment, the company went from 254,000 square feet of facility space to 127,000, and it expects to reap another 30 percent in energy savings.

Sweetening the effort: Sun's enjoying nearly $1 million in rebates and awards from Silicon Valley Power, including a one-time $250,000 cooling innovation award, the first award of its kind given by the utility.

Sun estimates that the company's datacenter efforts will reduce its CO2 production by 4,100 tons per year, trimming 1 percent from the company's total carbon footprint. (The latter stat is pretty interesting; most companies don't get quite so detailed as to the size of their footprint.)

One of the most intriguing aspects of Sun's new datacenter design is its pods: modular, scalable clusters of racks or benches that have the same requirements. The design will enable Sun to easily and quickly swap in and out racks, as well as deploy modular power, cooling, cabling, and monitoring equipment. Planning for future growth, Sun designed server racks to support a capacity of up to 30kw per rack.

There's a lot more detail about the modular design and other technologies and practices Sun employed on the company's Web site. I recommend that you watch Sun's Energy Efficient Datacenter Tour on the company Web site. It's pretty interesting and informative, and not too market-y, either.

In addition to showing off its shiny new datacenter facilities, Sun unveiled several products and services to help companies wring more energy efficiency out of their own datacenters.

Among them, Sun unveiled three Eco Ready Kits: The Sun Eco Assessment Kit, The Sun Eco Optimization Kit and the The Sun Eco Virtualization Kit.

The Sun Eco Assessment Kit "provides a methodical approach to analyzing datacenter energy efficiency, using a combination of assessment services for systems, storage, and datacenter infrastructure."

The Sun Eco Optimization Kit is designed "to help customers optimize, consolidate, refresh, and recycle their hardware infrastructure ... ."

The Sun Eco Virtualization Kit "offers virtualization solutions that enable better asset utilization and datacenter energy efficiency," according to Sun.

Additionally, Sun announced its Eco Services Suite, which encompasses four offerings:

The Sun Eco Assessment Service for Datacenter, Basic, which is intended to help customers maximize power and cooling efficiency in the IT infrastructure running Web-based services;
The Sun Eco Assessment Service for Datacenter, Advanced, "a comprehensive datacenter service providing a technical evaluation of datacenter energy use, cooling capacity, rack placement, air distribution and other environmental factors";
The Sun Eco Cooling Efficiency Service for Datacenter, aimed at helping companies "recover misused air conditioning capacity and direct it to the areas where it is needed";
and the Sun Eco Optimization Service for Datacenter, through which Sun provides direct assistance with implementation of corrective actions outlined in the Eco Assessment Service.

Posted by Ted Samson on August 22, 2007 12:38 PM

August 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

A mighty ionic wind could revolutionize chip-cooling

InfoWorld: A mighty ionic wind could revolutionize chip-cooling Researchers at Purdue University have demonstrated a new technology that employs "ionic wind engines" to cool chips as much as five times more effectively than other experimental cooling approaches, the institution reports.

In their testing, researchers found that the technology reduced heating from about 140 degrees Fahrenheit to about 95. This kind of cooling technology could help hardware makers develop thinner, more powerful laptops, according to Purdue. (I imagine it could also show up in server hardware.)

"In computers and electronics, power equals heat, so we need to find ways to manage the heat generated in more powerful laptops and handheld computers," said Timothy Fisher, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.

According to Purdue, the cooling technology could appear in computers in the next three years -- if researchers are able to reduce the size of components within the device from the scale of millimeters to microns, or millionths of a meter. They'll also have to figure out how to make the system sufficiently rugged.

"As things get smaller, they get more delicate, so we need to strengthen all the elements. And we believe we can achieve this goal in a year or so," said Suresh Garimella, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.

Down the road, it could also show up in portable devices such as cell phones.

The technology uses tiny "ionic wind engines" to achieve its supercool chilling effect. Here's how Purdue explains it: The device contains a positively charged wire, or anode, and negatively charged electrodes, called cathodes. When voltage passes through the device, the negatively charged electrodes discharge electrons toward the positively charged anode. Along the way, the electrons collide with air molecules, producing positively charged ions, which were then attracted back toward the negatively charged electrodes. This creates the "ionic wind," which increases the airflow on the surface of the experimental chip.

The research, funded by Intel, was conducted and documented in a paper by Fisher, Garimella, mechanical engineering doctoral student David Go, and Intel research engineer Rajiv Mongia. Specifics about the research will appear in the Journal of Applied Physics, tentatively scheduled for the Sept. 1 issue.

Posted by Ted Samson on August 14, 2007 11:44 AM

August 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Is IBM's Big Iron also Big Green?

As part of Project Big Green, Big Blue is pushing its System z mainframes as an energy-efficient alternative to server racks

IBM, project big green, mainframes, big iron As the list of arguably green technologies continues to expand, it's interesting to observe how many of the candidates are by no means new. Virtualization has technically been around for years, for example, as have thin clients. But one of the more surprising technologies to make the list is the mainframe.

Yes, mainframes. Big Iron. Those big ol' data-crunching behemoths regarded by some as the dinosaurs of the datacenter. Pundits have periodically predicted they'll go extinct -- or at least pondered aloud how long they'd be around.

But mainframes have continued to evolve -- and seemingly thrive. According to both IBM and IDC research, mainframes sales remain strong. And with green fever infecting the business world, Big Blue hopes that Big Iron will soon be regarded as Big Green Machinery.

As part of its billion-dollar Project Big Green endeavor, IBM revealed this week that it's partaking of a giant bowl of its own dog food, moving the workload of 3,900 of its 8,500 servers to 30 virtualized System z9 mainframes running Linux. (Yes, Big Blue says it will properly recycle those machines.)

"The cost of energy, power to run computers, storage, and networking equipment, as well as the power to the cooling equipment, is becoming the highest single cost of managing a datacenter," says David Gelardi, VP of industry solutions at IBM. "IBM took a look at these very interesting plums coming to the forefront at the same time. We have an opportunity with systems management tools, with Linux, and with virtualization, to be able to take the workloads that are principally running on much smaller, underutilized Unix servers and move them over to those 30 very large mainframes."

Big Blue anticipates the move from 3,900 servers to 30 mainframes will cut energy consumption by around 80 percent, a healthy cost savings no matter how you slice it. Specifically, the company anticipates reducing its total annual energy consumption, including power and cooling, from 3,266 kilowatts to 629, and total expenses from $2.86 million to $551,000.

Reports from Robert Frances Group (RFG) lend credence to IBM's claims that mainframes can deliver processing power more efficiently than standard servers. In a white paper titled "Mainframe Computing and Power in the Data Center" dated Feb. 16, 2007, RFG reports the following:

"Mainframe systems consume less power, both in absolute and relative terms [than standard servers]. Typically, mainframe power densities are less than half of those of current rack and blade distributed systems. When looking at like workloads, the amount of energy consumed falls precipitously, in some cases the costs associated for power needed for an application are reduced by a factor of 600."

Part of the can be attributed to the fact that "mainframes are designed with a central AC/DC power converter, which operates at over
90 percent efficiency, compared with many existing rack server power converters which operate at 70 percent," according to a separate RFG report.

Also a boon: more precious floor space, moving from 11,045 square feet of occupied space to 1,643 square feet with the 30 mainframes.

Is IBM's Big Iron also Big Green?, IBM, project big green, mainframes, big iron Meet the machines
IBM's z9 mainframes are 64-bit machines, packing "specialty processors" designed for processing eligible Linux, Java, and data workloads as well as encrypting and decrypting certain data.

The machines' HiperSockets technology provides fast communication among all the virtual servers contained in a single machine, according to IBM. "By contrast, in a distributed environment, where many physical servers are connected by networking cables, lag time may be greater," the company argues.

Additionally, IBM says the machines can handle massive workloads. "The mainframe recently achieved the world's largest core banking benchmark result, delivering a record 9,445 business transactions per second in real time based on more than 380 million accounts with three billion transaction histories."

"Thank God for Linux."
Green ambitions -- both in terms of ecofriendliness and slicing energy bills -- are just part of the picture here. Linux's maturity stands to boost the mainframe's appeal, Gelardi says. "If you were to talk to just about any software company in the world, they would tell you the same story: "Thank God for Linux, because the 37 Unix variants were making us crazy. Linux is attractive because it's ubiquitous. You couldn't find too many products in the industry that don't support Linux."

Also appealing, according to Gelardi: the potential savings on software licenses, which are generally sold on a per-CPU basis. Moving from 3,900 servers, which might have, on the low end, 7,800 CPUs, to the 30 mainframes, which represent, at most, 1,920 CPUs (64 per mainframes), means a substantial reduction in software bills.

Finally, IBM is making the fairly familiar case the having fewer machines means you can free up IT staff to work on other projects.

Geraldi stresses that the mainframe isn't suited for all server tasks, which is why the company isn’t trading it its remaining 4,000-plus servers for mainframes. Typically, mainframes have been used for bulk-data processing tasks such as ERP and financial transaction processing. "There are lots of workloads that will still favor other architectures. We do not today, and as far as I can tell, for the future, have this notion of this being one size fits all."

Posted by Ted Samson on August 2, 2007 03:00 AM

July 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beat the datacenter heat, cheap

Low-cost strategies to reduce cooling costs are a surefire cure for the summertime energy-bill blues

Nothing induces panting like the dog days of summer, except perhaps the hyperventilation that occurs when you receive the electric bill after spending a month immersed in air-conditioned-bliss. But there are inexpensive alternatives to blasting 24/7 A/C for keeping your cool at home during these balmy days -- simple things such as sealing air leaks, drawing the shades when the sun's out, and opening windows at night when it's cooler outside.

In the datacenter, admins are feeling the heat as well. Business-critical hardware must remain properly cooled, but the energy bills seem to soar exponentially as the temperature rises.

Fortunately, even the most frugal and financially strapped organizations have ways to cut their A/C bills without having to perform an entire IT-operations overhaul. Following are a few tips for trimming not only some expense from your cooling bills, but as a result, shrinking your organization's environmental footprint in the process.

1. Fight heat with heat. According to tips provided by Sun and attributed to Dave Douglas, the company's vice president of eco-responsibility, increasing the set point temperature in your datacenter by just one measly degree can reduce energy consumption by 4 to 5 percent.

Taking it a step further, raising the set point from 68F to 72F could save 15 percent to 20 percent of the cooling energy "while still keeping air inlet temperatures well within computer manufacturer specifications," according to the information from Sun. In fact, ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) suggests setting the temperature in a modern datacenter at 78 degrees, which reaps even more savings.

2. Plug holes in the raised floor. Plugging those holes in the floor is a widely recommended best practice. Leaks can result in cool air escaping, as well as hot spots. Holes and leaks can crop up in various places. One of the more common culprits are the cable holes under racks and cabinets.

Robert McFarlane, president of the Interport division at Shen Milsom Wilke, recommends plugging those holes with either a do-it-yourself sealant, made from Masonite and duct tape, for example, or using a commercial product such as KoldLok Brush Grommet. Placing blanking panels on all unused space in front of a rack call also promote efficient cooling.

3. Enter the thermal zone. Experts such as Digital Realty's Vice President of Engineering Jim Smith recommend setting up hot and cool aisles in the datacenter. In this kind of layout, each aisle between rows of server racks is bounded with either just hot-air outlets or cool-air intakes. The goal is to isolate and extract heat before it mixes with cold air.

Use strip curtains to enhance the separation by blocking open space above the racks. (Smith had other insights to share with me in an interview, which you can watch right here.)

4. Pull some plugs. Hopefully you have a way of knowing which machines in your datacenter are actually being utilized. If not, performing an inventory is always a good idea. Once you've done that and determine which ones are running at 0 percent utilization, unplug them, suggests Douglas: "If there is a problem [and] someone complains about the system being unavailable, turn it back on." You will see immediate power and cooling savings.

5. Harness the elements. Air- and water-side economizers, or a combination thereof, can help deliver efficient, inexpensive cooling in the right environments, according to Amory Lovins, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). He told SearchDataCenter.com, "An air-side economizer is very cheap in capital cost and uses essentially no energy, just a tiny bit for controls. Water-side economizer, evaporative cooling with a cooling tower, and heat exchanges in your chilled water loop, [costs] $100 per ton. If you design it very well, it gives you 100 or even 125 units of coefficient performance."

These tips are, of course, just starting-off points, but they're well worth trying. Not only might they help you achieve some of the cost-saving benefits of a greener datacenter, but, hey, all the cool IT pros are doing it.

Posted by Ted Samson on July 19, 2007 03:00 AM

June 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Dell chills with Emerson

Companies say bundled server and cooling products can deliver an 80 percent increase in system performance

InfoWorld: Dell chills with Emerson As datacenter managers become increasingly aware that it can cost as much to cool a server as it does to run it, hardware vendors are concocting ways to put the freeze on those high energy bills.

While some vendors, such as HP and IBM have developed their own respective cooling solutions, Dell today is announcing a different approach: The company has teamed with Emerson Network to deliver Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions, which combines Dell's PowerEdge Energy Smart servers with Liebert XD and Liebert DS cooling systems.

The companies assert that the bundle can "deliver an 80 percent increase in performance and a 42 percent reduction in facility power, while maintaining high levels of business continuity and availability."

"CIOs and facilities managers are consistently faced with the challenge of increasing computing capacity to meet growing business needs while concurrently minimizing energy costs," said Rick Becker, vice president of solutions for Dell Product Group in a written statement. "By reducing both operational costs and the carbon footprint for our customers, Dell is simplifying the way businesses can take advantage of energy efficient programs and technologies without compromising IT performance."

The Liebert XD system provides high-capacity overhead or rack-adjacent cooling using a high-efficiency pumped refrigerant, which Emerson says can result in inceased datacenter cooling efficiency while letting companies use their existing datacenter infrastructure.

Liebert DS supports the XD system and uses variable capacity Digital Scroll compressors to balance cooling across the room while controlling humidity and filtering out harmful dust and particles, according to Emerson.

Dell says it's in the process of developing Energy Smart Services to complement Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions. The services will help customers identify power and cooling inefficiencies, assess datacenter infrastructure and systems capacities, develop recommendations for improvements to optimize computing capacity, reclaim data center space and reduce energy usage.

The Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions are available worldwide, and are being jointly marketed and sold by the two companies.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 28, 2007 08:00 AM

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