Data Center Power

Data Center Power Consumption Does Not Increase as Much as Experts Feared

By Carrie Schmelkin TMCnet Web Editor

It appears that one of the biggest concerns about data center power consumption can be put to rest.

In 2007, the Environmental Protection agency predicted that the amount of electricity consumed by data centers would double between 2005 and 2010, based upon the rate of new data center construction. Even though powerhouses like Google (News - Alert), Amazon and Facebook participated in the digital revolution and constructed new data centers, electricity growth for data center use over the five-year period was 36 percent, as opposed to 100 percent, according to a report written in InformationWeek. 

"The slowdown in the rate of growth of electricity use is particularly significant because it comes in the midst of the biggest build-out of new data center capacity in the history of the industry," New York Times writer John Markoff wrote in his column July 3.

One of the main reasons that data center power consumption has been kept in check is because of the PUE, or Power Usage Effectiveness measure. This measures the amount of power delivered to the data center versus the amount actually used in executing computing.

One company that relies on PUE measurements and stellar data center power monitoring technology is Server Technology (News - Alert), a company that works to design, develop and provide the world's best power management products and system.

Its flagship product, the Sentry Power Manager (SPM) which was recently upgraded, is touted as an “unbelievable solution” for rack-level data center power management that provides significant innovations. This single pane of glass view has the ability to manage an entire CDU network while providing measurement, monitoring and trending data at the rack level or device level, according to company officials.

SPM 5.0, which took about nine months to develop, offers an affordable solution that provides the critical power information from IT equipment that data center management needs to make informed decisions about power and energy use. The new SPM Version 5.0 is enhanced with an intuitive interface, world-class design and functionality, and improved CDU monitoring and management capabilities.

Some other reasons for the lower number of electrical use are because of the recession, new data center designs, more efficient technology, and virtualization.

With regards to virtualization, data centers are becoming more efficient because different servers are being consolidated.

According to Server Technology’s Senior Director of Software and Firmware Engineering Calvin Nicholson, the majority of servers in a lot of the data centers today are running at 15 to 25 percent of their capacity; but if one looks at a server and the amount of power it uses, roughly 40 to 50 percent of that power is used to just keep it on.

“You have a cost just for that server sitting there and not doing the most efficient amount of work,” Nicholson told TMCnet in a recent interview.

Once a virtualization project is completed a manger can go from having 100 servers to 25, according to Nicholson.

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