Don’t accept defeat against data center power shortages

The ongoing power crisis is taking its toll on large data center operators. According to a recent survey by Campos Research, most of these operators are expanding their facilities or build new ones — and they’re citing a lack of available power as the No. 1 cause. At the same time, these organizations report that their data centers are operating at an appallingly high average PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) ratio of 2.9.

Interestingly, the survey also hints at a growing interest among organizations in containerized data centers, which are essentially modular data centers in a box that are relatively quick and easy to install for added capacity. Although this route may be more efficient and sustainable than building entirely new facilities from scratch, too many companies are overlooking opportunities to embrace smart, sustainable practices to save money and resources and, in the process, make their existing data centers more efficient.

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Failing PUE grade If you’re not familiar with PUE, it’s a widely used ratio to assess how much power in a data center is going toward doing actual work by power IT equipment versus how much is being used for power, cooling, and other nonproductive duties. A PUE of 1.0 means that 100 percent of a facility’s energy is being used to power IT equipment. A PUE score of 2.0 means that 50 percent of the data center’s energy is fueling the IT gear.

According to the Uptime Institute, the industry average is 2.5; others pin it at around 2.1. Meanwhile, the EPA’s oft-cited report to Congress on data center efficiency predicted that data centers could achieve a PUE of 1.7 or lower through improved operations, 1.3 employing best practices, or 1.2 by adopting state-of-the-art technologies.

The data center operators participating in the Campos study, which was commissioned by Digital Realty Trust, represent organizations with at least 5,000 employees or an annual revenue of $1.0 billion, report an average PUE of 2.9. That means, on average, for each watt that companies are purchasing to power their data centers, only around 33 percent is going toward productive work.

Notably, the survey does reflect that data center operators are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of tracking energy consumption. “[Over] the past two to three years … the industry has gone from power metering being the exception to power metering being utilized by more than three quarters of respondents,” said Chris Crosby, senior vice president of corporate development at Digital Realty. “Awareness of PUE is also nearly universal now, with 96 percent of companies familiar with the emerging standard for measuring energy efficiency. These are very positive signs that companies better understand their data centers’ energy use and can make informed decisions to reduce energy consumption.”

However, I’m not convinced data center operators are making informed decisions to reduce energy consumption if, indeed, the average PUE among these enterprise-level respondents is 2.9. I understand why some large organizations can have a justifiably higher PUE than operators of smaller facilities. Depending on your industry, you may very well need your data centers to meet Tier III or even Tier IV requirements, which require an extremely high level of redundancy (such as backup power) to guarantee round-the-clock uptime and flawless service levels.

At the same time, other operators are likely guilty of overprovisioning their data centers, piling on far costlier, more wasteful backup power and cooling than necessary.

Further, given the high average PUE reported by these organizations, there’s little doubt in my mind that too many data center operators still aren’t embracing some of the most basic best practices to conserve energy. That includes relatively simple tasks, such as setting up hot and cold aisles, plugging holes in the raise floor, and raising the temperature in the data center to meet ASHRAE newest standards. Also effective for saving precious watts and reducing PUE: investing in newer, more energy-efficient power and cooling infrastructure.

[ Check out these 50 tips from the EPA for boosting efficiency in your data center. ]

On the IT side, companies have reaped energy-saving rewards from technologies such as virtualization, which not only reduces server count but potentially reduces power and cooling demands. Strategies such as thin provisioning, to reduce storage overload, and application mapping, to help track down and unplug or reuse zombie (that is, highly underutilized) servers, can also be very effective.

Door-to-door data center Despite a wealth of opportunities to cut waste and save space, large data center operators are expanding their facilities and building new ones. Over half (57 percent) of the companies surveyed said they’ve built a new data center in the past 24 months; 82 percent said they would probably or definitely expand this year.

Remarkably, a full 71 percent of those with definite expansion plans intended to use containerized data centers, which suggests organizations are indeed finding value in these modular offerings, despite their hefty costs. HP’s 20-foot containerized POD (Performance Optimized Datacenter) starts at $600,000 — without IT equipment. Other vendors, including IBM, APC, Dell, and Rackable Systems, offer containerized data centers too.

Companies have already adopted these nearly plug-and-play data centers as stop-gap solutions to meet soaring data center demands. WesTrac, a supplier of Caterpillar-brand machinery in Australia, bought one from IBM recently to serve as a temporary solution to a capacity shortage. The company intends to use the portable facility as a disaster recovery solution once it finds a permanent cure for its capacity woes.

However, data centers in a box may very well be more than a fad, as there’s much to like about the approach. First, they’re designed to be highly energy-efficient. HP’s POD has a PUE ratio of 1.25, for example. Second, they can be delivered and deployed quickly. Third, the approach enables organizations to save money by expanding data centers in pace with demand, rather than pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into building and powering a new facility that won’t be fully populated for months.

Microsoft has already adopted the containerized approach to data center expansion at facilities in Chicago and Dublin. The company is also looking to enhance the strategy in such a way that it can purchase some land (where free cooling is available), build a substation, and populate the acreage with modular units of servers as demand grows.

It’s heartening to see that more data center operators are measuring energy consumption and efficiency and are exploring smarter approaches to data center expansion. However, I remain disappointed by the overall findings in this survey. With their average PUE of 2.9, it appears that data center operators aren’t running their facilities efficiently and continue to throw money at new buildings (or boxes), rather than embracing best sustainability practices to wring the most out of their existing investments.

A more detailed presentation of the survey results will take place in a Webinar on March 15, featuring IDC vice president Michelle Bailey and Digital Realty’s Crosby. To register for the event, visit www.digitalrealtytrust.com.

This story, “Don’t accept defeat against data center power shortages,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in green IT and read more of Ted Samson’s Sustainable IT blog at InfoWorld.com.