Planning
- Long term data center planning is a challenge in the face of evolving IT technology. Nevertheless,
data center facilities have a lifetime that will span many generations of IT equipment, so planning can have a large
impact on the effectiveness of investments. Many unnecessary costs can be avoided with simple planning strategies, and even
uncertainties can be incorporated into a plan.
Electrical Efficiency
- Electricity usage costs have become an ever increasing percentage of the total cost of ownership for data centers.
Data center electrical efficiency is rarely planned or managed. The result is that most data centers waste substantial
amounts of electricity. Today it is possible to plan and improve data center efficiency. Electrical efficiency improvements
can give higher IT power densities and the ability to install more IT equipment in a given installation.
HVAC Management
- Room cooling is an ineffective
approach for today's data centers. High density IT equipment creates conditions that room cooling was never intended to address.
Ever increasing high density IT equipment can challenge the cooling capabilities of data centers. Unmanaged placement
of this equipment can lead to unexpected problems with the cooling infrastructure including overheating and loss of redundancy.
The ability, looking forward, to measure and predict cooling capabilities is required to ensure predictable performance
of the physical infrastructure.
Systems Commissioning
- Failure to properly commission a data center leaves the site open for expensive and disruptive downtime that can
be avoided. Integrated commissioning of all physical infrastructure components assures maximum data center performance and
justifies the physical infrastructure investment.