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Energy Efficiency: What You Can Do: Page 2 of 9

Compounding this problem is the fact that power density is going up between 20 and 30 percent for all IT equipment annually. This has the following ripple effects:

  • Much more power needs to be supplied to each square foot of a data center;
  • More power is required to cool hotter equipment;
  • More heat extraction equipment needs to be supplied to each square foot of a data center, requiring more electricity for IT equipment.

There is no end in sight to this vicious circle. The maximum heat density of equipment that can be air-cooled in a data center is approximately 10,000 watts per square foot, yet most data centers were designed years ago for power densities of much less than 1,000 watts per square foot. Many data centers are now constrained by power and cooling limits, not floor space as was the case last decade. The bottom line is todays data centers will largely be obsolete by the end of this decade as we are approaching the limits of heat extraction in many shops.

What can be done?

The three most useful actions organizations can take to reduce energy consumption are:

  1. Use outside air to cool data centers
  2. Implement hot and cold aisles with air monitoring equipment
  3. Virtualize server infrastructures and get rid of stuff

The effectiveness of using outside air will vary. If you’re in Tampa, Florida, for example, you might only see a 5 percent savings on cooling costs because of the humidity of the climate, but if your data center is in Fairbanks, Alaska, you could save over 60 percent.