Just implementing technology will not solve your energy problems!

Recent Gartner research has unveiled that energy costs are the fastest rising cost in the data centre and that this trend is unlikely to change any time soon.

Even though strategic initiatives like virtualisation, storage consolidation and data de-duplication etc have the ability to reduce the physical footprint, the post-recession increase in demand for new services will drive continued growth in the technology infrastructure.

Gartner estimates that the energy bill accounts for about twelve percent (12%) of the overall data centre budget and this growth in infrastructure will only compound the cost issue while fuelling further problems with the power and cooling resources.

This problem has the propensity of being compounded by the projected doubling of raw energy costs over the next few years (source Ofgem).

The market, (manufacturers and vendors) have responded with a wealth of technology enhancements to almost every aspect of IT and the data centre. Driven by several billion dollars worth of investment over the last few years, this improvement in technology will probably continue for many years to come.

However, this has presented an overwhelming amount of tactical solutions for ICT and data centre managers to consider. Although choice is welcome, once the low hanging fruit has been picked the question of how to progress to ensure maximum energy efficiency will create interesting challenges.

With so many areas of operation that consume energy to consider, such as the building, electrical facilities, cooling infrastructure, IT equipment and support areas, it is necessary to step back and look at the data centre as a complete energy system.

This holistic approach will enable a route map to be developed that provides both strategic direction for energy resources but also leverages tactical gain from short term energy efficiency projects.

Such an approach has two main requirements - assessment and monitoring.

Assessment of the energy infrastructure will identify the gap analysis and activities that can be developed into a long term action plan. Monitoring establishes a technical benchmark of energy consumption that can be used to consider the effect of planned changes, validate progress and feed reports for compliance requirements, such as the CRC.

These two processes begin to lay the foundation stones for developing a full energy management system, such as BS EN 16001, within ICT that enables proactive planning of the energy resources and is also aligned with your corporate energy initiatives.

Dimension 85 specialises in Data Centre Energy Efficiency Management. Contact Dimension 85 from our website.