Data Center Technology:

Physical Infrastructure
IT Trends Affecting New Technologies and Energy
Efficiency Imperatives in the Data Center

Hisham Elzahhar
Regional Enterprise & System Manager,
Schneider Electric IT business EMEA, Dubai

Keystrokes
Kilowatts

Heat OUT

Electricity IN
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US Electrical Energy Sources 2006

Other Renew ables
Hydro-Electric 2%
7%

Coal

Nuclear
19%

Petroleum
CoalCoal
50%

Natural Gas
Nuclear
Hydro-Electric

Natural Gas
20%

Other Renewables
Petroleum
2%

Source US EIA

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Prime Electrical Source

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WHICH infrastructure?

BUILDING
infrastructure
Building systems
systems

HVAC
Electrical system
Fire suppression
Lighting
Security
BMS
Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

DATA CENTER
infrastructure
Power
Cooling
Racks
Management
Lighting
Fire suppression
Physical security

IT
infrastructure
IT assets
assets
Servers, storage
hypervisors, NMS

NETWORK
infrastructure
Switches, cabling,
routers
5

WHICH infrastructure?
Focus of this
discussion

BUILDING
infrastructure
Building systems
systems

HVAC
Electrical system
Fire suppression
Lighting
Security
BMS
Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

DATA CENTER
infrastructure
Power
Cooling
Racks
Management
Lighting
Fire suppression
Physical security

IT
infrastructure
IT assets
assets
Servers, storage
hypervisors, NMS

NETWORK
infrastructure
Switches, cabling,
routers
6

Data center planning and operation

is under increasing pressures
Increasing availability
expectations
Uncertain
long-term plans for
capacity or density

High density
blade server
power/heat
Regulatory
requirements

Rapid changes in
IT technology
Energy and service
cost control pressure

Dynamic power
variation

Server
consolidation

In response, will need to change the way the

world designs, installs, operates, manages, and
maintains data centers
Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

The increasing power density

of data centers

Management challenge:
HIGH DENSITY

Power density of IT devices

is leveling off

but power density of data centers

continues to increase due to packing of
high-density devices into smaller floor
footprint
2000

2009

KW per rack continues to increase, raising the need

for management to keep things under control
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High density is stressing

power and cooling systems

Management challenge:
HIGH DENSITY

IT is getting boxed-in by limitations of

power and cooling infrastructure

High density increases the risk of unpredictable cooling

Capacity is tight in some places, unused and unusable
(stranded) in others
High density requires informed and efficient allocation of
your expensive power/cooling resources
High density increases the need to know where new devices
can be squeezed in to available capacities

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The Newest Challenge: EFFICIENCY

Efficiency goal:

Provide power and cooling in the amount needed, when needed, and
where needed but no more than what is required for redundancy
and safety margins
But we can
cant manage what we can
cant measure

Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

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Datacenter Efficiency - DCiE

Data center

Power path
to IT

POWER
system

Power
to IT

Power to
data center

IT
equipment
Power to
Secondary
Support

COOLING
system
*To simplify the analysis, subsystems
consuming a small amount of power
are not included in this discussion:

Physical
infrastructure*
*

Cabling
Switches
Lights

Power
to IT

White
paper

Data Center infrastructure Efficiency

Power to
data center

Physical security
Generator
Switchgear

)%

113
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Datacenter Efficiency
Data Center
Physical Infrastructure

PO
sy W
st ER
em

C
O
sy O L
s t IN
em G

IT

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Power Chain Losses

4,930 barrels
47 tons SO2
16 tons N2O
6,539 tons CO2

Per mW/yr

1mW

DCiE @ 47%
45 racks @ 10kW

Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

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Inefficiencies Create Consumption

Computing inefficiencies > More servers

Server inefficiencies > More power and cooling
Power and cooling inefficiencies > More power consumption

Inefficiencies drive both power consumption

and material consumption

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Primary drivers of inefficiency

Oversizing of power and cooling equipment

Pushing cooling systems to cool densities higher than they were
designed for

Ineffective room

layout
Ineffective airflow patterns
Redundancy (for availability)
Inefficient power and cooling equipment
Inefficient operating settings of cooling equipment
Clogged air or water filters
Disabled or malfunctioning cooling economizer modes
Raised floor clogged with wires

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Efficiency: key reference points

More than 50% of the power going into a typical data center
goes to the power and cooling systems NOT to the IT loads
The typical 1MW (IT load) data center is continuously wasting
about 400kW or 2,000 tons of coal per year due to poor design
(DCiE = 50%, instead of best-practice 70%)
Every kW saved in a data center saves about $1,000 per year
Every kW saved in a data center reduces carbon dioxide
emissions by 5 tons per year
Every kW saved in a data center has a carbon reduction
equivalent to eliminating about 1 car from the road.
A 1% improvement in data center infrastructure efficiency (DCiE)
corresponds to approximately 2% reduction in electrical bills

References: APC White Paper 66

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Power tools for The Efficient Enterprise

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Power tools The Four Cs

1

omponents
MODULAR and SCALABLE, with best-in-class EFFICIENCY

loselose-coupled cooling
Placement of cooling units near the heat source

ontainment
Thermal containment of airflow in high-density zones

apacity management
Instrumented intelligence to optimize use of power and
cooling capacity

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omponents with the right stuff

Best-in-class component EFFICIENCY

 Efficient
 Agile
 Scalable
MODULAR SCALABLE component design

External modularity
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Internal modularity
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Problem: Underloading
Low loading = low efficiency
In a traditional data center, over half the power consumption
of the power/cooling infrastructure is fixed and does not go down
when IT load goes down
Efficiency degrades as IT load declines
Underloading is a primary contributor to inefficiency
100%
90%

E ffic ie n c y

80%
Data center 70%
Efficiency 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%

Efficiency degrades at low loads

Typical load range

10%
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
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% IT Load
IT load

20

Solution: Right-sizing

Efficiency gain through modular scalable

buildout avoids oversizing / underloading
100%
90%

Power and cooling

installation method

80%

E fficiency

Data center
Efficiency

70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0%

Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

10%

20% 30%

40%

50%

60%

% IT
IT load
Load

70% 80%

90% 100%
21

Modular scalable design

Reduce power consumption up to 30% by right-sizing
power and cooling infrastructure

Avoid underloading
run more efficiently

Pay only for what you need, when you need it

P = Power C = Cooling R = Racks

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500kW of scalable, high-efficiency

power protection
25kW
425kW
400kW
375kW
350kW
325kW
300kW
275kW
250kW
225kW
200kW
175kW
150kW
125kW
100kW
75kW
50kW
500kW
450kW
475kW

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lose-coupled cooling
Reduce power consumption up to 20% with InRow
architecture

Closely couples cooling with heat load, preventing exhaust air

recirculation

Less fan power than traditional raised-floor system

Varying equipment temperatures are constantly held to set point

conditions

Lowers operating cost by monitoring inlet temperatures to modulate

cooling capacity based on the cooling demand

Fan speed adjusts to follow changing IT heat

load

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Close-coupled cooling
InRow air
conditioner

Heat captured and

rejected to chilled water

Hot-aisle air enters from

rear, preventing mixing
Cold air is supplied
to the cold aisle

Hot aisle

Cold aisle

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Can operate on hard

floor or raised floor
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Efficiency comparison
100%

Cooling Efficiency

90%

Cooling
efficiency

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

% ITload
Load
IT
Cooling
efficiency = useful cooling power / (power consumed + useful cooling power)
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ontainment
Eliminate expensive temperature cross-contamination
with thermal containment options

Simplifies analysis and understanding

of the thermal environment

Increases predictability of the cooling

system

Increases cooling EFFICIENCY and

cooling CAPACITY by returning warmest possible air to cooling
units

Ensures proper air distribution by

separating supply and return air paths

Hot Aisle Containment (HAC)

Rack Air Containment (RAC)

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Rack Air Containment

Rear
Rear
Containment

Rear containment prevents

hot exhaust air from escaping
All exhaust air is returned to
InRow cooling unit
Optional front containment
directs cool air to front of
servers

InRow
cooling
unit

InRow
cooling
unit

NetShelter SX
rack

Front
Containment

Allows up to 60 kW per rack

(30 kW with N+1 redundancy)
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Front
Top Down View

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Hot aisle containment vs traditional

room cooling
Inherently higher power
density capability than room
designs

100%

90%

Needless dehumidification /
re-humidification is eliminated
Need for high-bay areas and
raised floors is reduced or
eliminated (particularly for small
installations)
Cooling capacity can follow
IT loads that move due to
virtualization and server power
management
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C o o lin g E f f ic ie n c y

Fan power is reduced by 50%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%
0%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

% IT Load
Cooling efficiency = useful cooling power /
(power consumed + useful cooling power)

29

Hot Aisle Containment areas

can be added as needed

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apacity Management
Increase IT staff efficiency with predictable
Capacity Management

Identify over- and under-utilized areas of your data

center
Minimize waste and human error
via predictable software monitoring, sensing, and
environmental control
Quickly adapt to change with
real-time data on what to power
and where to cool

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Capacity Manager
Rack elevations

Physical equipment
provisioning

Easy-to-use front view for

accurate and detailed
representation of equipment
layout

Quickly locate the optimum spot

for that next server based on
space, cooling, and power needs

Capacity grouping
Specify architecture
capabilities to; match IT
equipment with availability
needs ad avoid stranded
space, power and cooling
capacity

Airflow analysis
Locate new devices without
overheating new or existing
equipment by simulating
changes in; supply
temperature, airflow and
number of cooling units

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Available capacity
Understand available capacity by
calculating actual space, power
and cooling consumption against
data center architecture
constraints

Design analysis
Model the effects of and
compare alternative layouts
through detailed design
analysis
32

Capacity and energy

management
Poor utilization of capacity is a
primary cause of inefficiency
Software can identify available
capacity (even by rack) and
help prevent creation of
stranded capacity
Side effect is you can fit more
IT equipment in the power and
cooling envelope of the data
center
Energy management can
identify efficiency improvement
opportunities

Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

Infrastructure Central Software

With Capacity Manager

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Power consumptions compared to the

IT load
IT Load
Aux Devices
Lights

Improving efficiency
means working to
reduce power
consumption (increase
efficiency) for each of
these device categories

Humidifier
Chiller
Pumps
Heat Rejection
CRAC
Distribution Wiring
Switchgear
Generator
PDU
UPS
0.0%
0%

20.0%
20% 40.0%
40% 60.0%
60% 80.0%
80% 100.0%
100% 120.0%
120%

Powerconsumption
Consumption
% the
of IT
Power
as as
% of
IT Load
load
Reference: APC White Paper 114
Schneider Electric - Division - Name Date

Data for a typical tier 4 data center operating at 30% of rated load
34

Drivers of infrastructure efficiency gains

(Baseline: Average of existing installed base)
Device Gain

DCiE Gain

$$ saved over 15
years in a 1MW data
center**

Move from room cooling to

dynamic row/rack cooling

70%

8%

$5,900,000

Cooling economizers

38%

4%

$2,500,000

Right-sizing through modular

power and cooling equipment

4%

4%

$2,400,000

Higher UPS efficiency

8%

4%

$1,900,000

415/240 V transformerless
power distribution (NAM)*

4%

2.5%

$1,500,000

Dynamic control of cooling

plant (VFD fans, pumps,
chillers)

25%

2.5%

$1,200,000

25%

$14,700,000

IMPROVEMENT

TOTAL to get industry

from 47% to 72% DCiE

*No benefit outside of NAM; Transformer based PDUs typically in NAM only
**$$
values
on $.15
Schneider
Electric - based
Division - Name
Date per kwh electric cost, starting DCiE of 47%, ave density 8KW/rack

35

Power Chain Losses Could Be

4,930 barrels
6,539 tons CO2
47 tons SO2
16 tons N2O

1,971 barrels
2,615 tons CO2
19 tons SO2
6 tons N2O

Per mW/yr

1mW

400kW

@
DCiE

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70%

36

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Questions?

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