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

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 2

US Electrical Energy Sources 2006

Other Renew ables

Hydro-Electric 2%
7%
Coal
Nuclear
Petroleum
19%
CoalCoal Natural Gas
50% Nuclear
Hydro-Electric

Natural Gas
Other Renewables
20% Petroleum
2%

Source US EIA

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 3

Prime Electrical Source

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WHICH infrastructure?

BUILDING
infrastructure
DATA CENTER
“Building systems”
systems”
infrastructure
HVAC Power
Electrical system IT
Fire suppression
Cooling infrastructure NETWORK
Racks
Lighting
Management “IT assets”
assets” infrastructure
Security
Lighting Servers, storage Switches, cabling,
BMS
Fire suppression hypervisors, NMS routers
Physical security
Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 5
WHICH infrastructure?
Focus of this
discussion

BUILDING
infrastructure
DATA CENTER
“Building systems”
systems”
infrastructure
HVAC Power
Electrical system IT
Fire suppression
Cooling infrastructure NETWORK
Racks
Lighting
Management “IT assets”
assets” infrastructure
Security
Lighting Servers, storage Switches, cabling,
BMS
Fire suppression hypervisors, NMS routers
Physical security
Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 6
Data center planning and operation
is under increasing pressures
Increasing availability Rapid changes in
expectations IT technology
Uncertain
long-term plans for Energy and service
capacity or density cost control pressure

High density
blade server Dynamic power
power/heat variation

Regulatory Server
requirements consolidation

In response, will need to change the way the

world designs, installs, operates, manages, and
maintains data centers
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 Management challenge:

The increasing power density HIGH DENSITY

of data centers

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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 Management challenge:

High density is stressing HIGH DENSITY

power and cooling systems

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

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 9

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’
can’t manage what we can’
can’t measure

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 10

 Datacenter Efficiency - DCiE
Data center

Power path POWER Power

to IT system to IT
Power to IT
data center equipment

Power to COOLING
Secondary
Support system

*To simplify the analysis, subsystems

consuming a small amount of power
Physical are not included in this discussion:
*
infrastructure* Cabling Physical security
Switches Generator
Lights Switchgear

Power
to IT

White
paper
=
Data Center infrastructure Efficiency Power to
( )%
data center
113
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Datacenter Efficiency
Data Center
Physical Infrastructure

IT

em G
s t IN
sy O L
O
C

st ER
em
sy W
PO

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Power Chain Losses
4,930 barrels
47 tons SO2 Per mW/yr
16 tons N2O
6,539 tons CO2

1mW

DCiE @ 47%

45 racks @ 10kW

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 13

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

2 lose-
lose-coupled cooling™
Placement of cooling units near the heat source

3 ontainment
Thermal containment of airflow in high-density zones

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

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 18

1 omponents with the “right stuff”
Best-in-class component EFFICIENCY

 Efficient
 Agile
 Scalable
MODULAR SCALABLE component design

External modularity 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%
80%
Data center 70% Efficiency degrades at low loads
E ffic ie n c y

Efficiency 60%
50%
40%
30% Typical load range
20%
10%
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date

% IT Load
IT load 20
 Solution: Right-sizing
Efficiency gain through modular scalable
buildout – avoids oversizing / underloading
100%
90%
Power and cooling
80% installation method
70%
Data center
E fficiency

60%
Efficiency
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date

% IT
IT load
Load 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

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 23

 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

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 24

 Close-coupled cooling™
InRow® air Heat captured and
conditioner rejected to chilled water

Hot-aisle air enters from

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

Hot aisle

Cold aisle Can operate on hard

floor or raised floor

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 25

 Efficiency comparison
100%

90%
Cooling Efficiency

80%
Cooling
efficiency 70%

60%

50%

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

IT
% ITload
Load

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 Hot Aisle Containment (HAC)

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
Rack Air Containment (RAC)

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 Rack Air Containment
Rear

Rear
Containment

InRow InRow
cooling cooling
unit unit
● Rear containment prevents
hot exhaust air from escaping

● All exhaust air is returned to

InRow® cooling unit NetShelter SX
rack
● Optional front containment
directs cool air to front of
servers Front
Containment
● Allows up to 60 kW per rack
(30 kW with N+1 redundancy)
Front
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Top Down View 28
Hot aisle containment vs traditional
room cooling
●Inherently higher power 100%
density capability than room
designs 90%

●Fan power is reduced by 50%

80%

C o o lin g E f f ic ie n c y
●Needless dehumidification /
re-humidification is eliminated 70%

●Need for high-bay areas and

raised floors is reduced or 60%
eliminated (particularly for small
installations) 50%

●Cooling capacity can “follow”

IT loads that move due to 40%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
virtualization and server power
% IT Load
management
Cooling efficiency = useful cooling power /
Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date (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™
Physical equipment Rack elevations
provisioning Easy-to-use front view for
Quickly locate the optimum spot accurate and detailed
for that next server based on representation of equipment
space, cooling, and power needs layout

Capacity grouping
Specify architecture
capabilities to; match IT
equipment with availability
needs ad avoid stranded
Airflow analysis space, power and cooling
Locate new devices without capacity
overheating new or existing
equipment by simulating Available capacity
changes in; supply Understand available capacity by Design analysis
temperature, airflow and calculating actual space, power Model the effects of and
number of cooling units and cooling consumption against compare alternative layouts
data center architecture through detailed design
constraints analysis
Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 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
Infrastructure Central Software
●Energy management can With Capacity Manager
identify efficiency improvement
opportunities

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 33

Power consumptions compared to the
IT load
IT Load

Aux Devices

Lights

Humidifier Improving efficiency

Chiller
means working to
Pumps
Heat Rejection
reduce power
CRAC consumption (increase
Distribution Wiring
efficiency) for each of
Switchgear

Generator
these device categories
PDU

UPS

0%
0.0% 20% 40.0%
20.0% 40% 60.0%
60% 80.0%
80% 100.0%
100% 120.0%
120%
Powerconsumption
Power Consumptionas as % the
% of of IT
IT Load
load
Reference: APC White Paper 114 Data for a typical tier 4 data center operating at 30% of rated load
Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 34
Drivers of infrastructure efficiency gains
(Baseline: Average of existing installed base)

$$ saved over 15
IMPROVEMENT Device Gain DCiE Gain 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, 25% 2.5% $1,200,000
chillers)

TOTAL to get industry

from 47% to 72% DCiE 25% $14,700,000

*No benefit outside of NAM; Transformer based PDUs typically in NAM only
**$$ values
Schneider Electric - based on –$.15
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 Per mW/yr
47 tons SO2
16 tons N2O

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

400kW

@ 70%
DCiE

Schneider Electric - Division - Name – Date 36

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Questions?

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