Data Center Power Featured Articles
What is Data Center Power?
By Carrie Schmelkin TMCnet Web Editor
Today’s data centers are more complex than ever and as the demand for power increases exponentially, data center managers everywhere are looking for ways to make their data centers more efficient and enjoy cost savings.
Data center power consumption can be extremely cost prohibitive, meaning available and reasonably priced power is of the utmost importance when selecting a new data center site. A data center power bill can be comprised of demand charge, power surcharge, service charge and sales tax. What the user pays for power often goes beyond the $/kWhr number.
According to reports, the cost of data center power is likely to continue to increase over time, and some analysts predict that power cost could double in the next 10 years.
With data center power costs on the rise, data center managers and data center monitoring companies have been working to increase efficiencies. Some argue that data centers have become more efficient over the last few decades, as managers start to look at efficiencies of the devices that are in the data center. Specifically, the uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) that are on the data center floor have gotten a lot more efficient and the power supplies, servers and devices have become more efficient.
But in order to maximize on efficiencies, managers are forced to monitor more aspects of the data center than ever before. A few years ago, a manager may have been focused on just monitoring data center power consumption, but managers have added other facets to what they monitor, particularly since managers are looking for ways to curb spending. For example, data centers are more concerned with environmental factors such as cooling.
In the past few years, power usage has gone up but data centers are doing a lot more work and are getting a lot more done. Data center power will continue to be a hotly monitored factor moving forward.
Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
Data Center Power Resources
Featured White Papers
This article explores the various monitoring systems typically found within the data center ecosystem and how to navigate getting the required power and environmental information needed to make better decisions within your data center facility.
[Read More]RF Code provides an enterprise class, wire-free sensor solution that is ideal for monitoring in real time the environmental conditions in IT dense areas such as data centers and IT closets.
[Read More]Within enterprise data centers, power used for operating the facility, lighting, running IT loads and cooling is the largest operational expense. Numerous papers and articles have been published by The Green Grid, The Uptime Institute, PG&E, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories and others discussing ways to measure, monitor and increase efficiencies. This paper discusses the effect on efficiency of load balancing across phases in a 3-phase distribution system.
[Read More]