If you own a car you know that if you want to keep it performing as efficiently as possible that you need to get it serviced regularly. The same goes for your household heating boiler, range cooker or that sit-down lawn mower. However, it is staggering how many companies fail to see the importance of servicing their data centre infrastructure regularly.
A data centre within a business is one of the most significant consumers of energy and therefore undoubtedly a costly facility to operate. Research by The Uptime Institute found that the average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) within the UK data centre infrastructure is estimated at 1.8 far above the potential of 1.2. This represents an effective efficiency rate of only 55%.
It is unlikely that any business would willingly allow parts of their operation to run at 55% efficiency levels!
Now is the time to consider if some of the reasons below are contributing to your data centre infrastructure's underperformance.
- Is ageing equipment delivering poor energy efficiency ratios compared to modern equivalents or maybe you possess a legacy data centre environment that needs an overhaul?
- Was your data centre built by non-data centre specialists and is unable to cope with contemporary IT loads leading to over provisioning?
- Is it being maintained regularly by professional data centre engineers or are you slow to adopt to modern operational practices?
Per 100kW of IT load the average energy saving is in the region of 60kW (assuming a PUE of 1.8 is reduced to 1.2) therefore by implementing an effective optimisation plan potential savings of £52k per year could be achieved.
You wouldn't put your central heating on and open all the windows nor ignore your car leaking diesel as you would clearly be throwing money away achieving no benefit at all. Creating an energy efficient and sustainable business operation is key to the success of any company.
In three simple steps, you can easily implement an effective optimisation plan;
- Enlist the services of a specialist company to undertake a Data Centre Audit. This will identify key areas of improvement and highlight a range of recommendations detailing the predicted impacts they will have on the overall data centre performance.
- It seems an obvious point, but ensure that you implement the audit recommendations at the earliest opportunity.
- Obtain Data Centre Energy Optimisation services which are designed to address data centre imbalances by fine tuning system settings and configuration arrangements with the aim of achieving optimum energy performance.
By optimising your data centre you will see a host of benefits from improved airflow efficiency and identification of poor performing equipment to application of best practice principles and improved PUE.
If you are facing increasing energy bills, possess legacy infrastructure, changes in IT load profile or you simply have not focused on energy efficiency over the past few years then there is no doubt that your company's balance sheet will benefit from undertaking an optimisation audit.
Workspace Technology offer a range of Optimisation Services, contact us today to see how we can save you money.