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11 ways your peers are saving power in the data center

I wasn't able to make the recent UptimeInstitute Symposium in California, but I was just going through some of the data released during the conference that has specific relevance to green IT.The information that I'm about to post may seem sort of basic or obvious to your organization -- if so, hurray for you and yours -- but personally I think we can all stand a back-to-basics reset every once in a while.
Written by Heather Clancy, Contributor

I wasn't able to make the recent UptimeInstitute Symposium in California, but I was just going through some of the data released during the conference that has specific relevance to green IT.

The information that I'm about to post may seem sort of basic or obvious to your organization -- if so, hurray for you and yours -- but personally I think we can all stand a back-to-basics reset every once in a while.

Keep in mind that this data is from Uptime's survey of 525 data center owners and operators, 71 percent of them were based in North America. The two most represented industries were financial services firms and co-location operators.

Many of the questions focused on operational stuff, but there was one in particular that caught my eye focused on "Energy savings: Implementing the easy stuff." If it's easy, you want to do it, right? Here are the strategies, rated from the highest number of responses, to the lowest number of responses:

  1. Server virtualization
  2. Hot aisle/cold aisle containment
  3. Power monitoring, benchmarking (or other metric)
  4. Raise inlet air temperatures
  5. VFDs on chillers, CRAM or pumps (in case you don't know, VFD stands for variable frequency drives)
  6. Modular data center design
  7. Air-side economizers
  8. Power-down features on servers
  9. Water-side economizers
  10. Liquid cooling
  11. Direct current (DC) power

Here is the specific data behind the answers, along with the question that drew them out.

So, reading through the data, I'm not surprised that virtualization shows up high. Nor was I astonished that basic design and organizational considerations, such as aisle placement, are being updated for power.

I was surprised, however, that so many data centers seem to have a handle on power monitoring and benchmarking. Maybe it is a function of the Uptime respondents, who generally are more interested in this sort of thing (in my experience) than your average data center manager. Likewise, I was intrigued that so few respondents were into direct current, although that may be a function of the equipment that is available -- as well as upgrade cycles.

One technology strategy that you should be looking at more closely, if the survey data is a good measure, is the idea that chillers and cooling equipment should come with variable speed components so that they only run as much as is necessary.

Run these strategies against your own plans and see where you come up lacking -- or ahead of the curve.

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