An airflow optimization project has been completed across 12 U.S. data centers by global network and IT services provider Verizon (
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Alert). With a focus on reducing data center power consumption, this move is expected to produce annual energy savings of 18.8m kWh.
To complete this
project, Verizon contracted Polargy, a California-based provider of containment services. On its end, Polargy designed the containment solutions for each of the designated facilities, managed the installation, secured the local fire-marshal approvals, and helped with the commissioning process.
The
data center power containment solution was dubbed PolarPlex and included hot-air redirection, the blocking of panels to fill empty rack space, and the installation of plastic or solid panels for air containment. The partnership with Polargy was established as the provider could deliver the desired energy savings and reductions for environmental impact.
The 12 sites together make up roughly 1m sq ft of data center space. Once the project was completed, Verizon noticed an aggregate 7.7 percent improvement in overall
energy efficiency across all involved facilities. The overall Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE) metric across all 12 facilities increased from 0.45 to 0.5.
Server Tech is one provider focused on
increasing efficiencies within the data center. Managers in the data center space are increasingly searching for ways to make their centers more efficient and reduce the overall cost of power.
“Their interest in efficiency is really about saving money and cost,” Server Technology’s (
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Alert) Senior Director of Software and Firmware Engineering Calvin Nicholson told TMCnet in a recent
interview. “We like to believe that they want to save the earth and that they are green, and I think some of the California companies take that seriously, but in general it’s because they see that it’s really affecting their bottom line.”
“Because of that, there’s a bunch of different areas where things have changed,” Nicholson said. “They are looking at efficiencies of the devices that are in the data center. The UPSs that are on the data center floor have gotten a lot more efficient, and the
power supplies and the servers and the devices have gotten a lot more efficient.”
Over the last 25 years, Server Technology has worked with the data center industry to design, develop and provide power management products and system. Definite changes have occurred within the industry during that time, including the increase in responsibilities for data center managers and the push toward virtualization.
Essentially, data center managers want to know where they are using power and how they can become more efficient. Server Tech provides data center power tools such as the Sentry Power Manager to enable managers to measure, monitor and trend data center power usage. In addition, the increased migration to virtualization is helping to improve efficiency within the data center through consolidation.
In the industry overall, data center power usage has increased, but managers are getting much more done, using less power for each service. The goal is to continue to drive this efficiency as the demand for data center power continues to increase.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Carrie Schmelkin