Dynamic cooling for datacentres

BANGALORE, INDIA: Trade Fairs and Conferences International (TFCI) organised 'Data Centre 2008', a summit focusing on green initiatives in data centres.

Kallol Hazra, director-consulting, HP India, said: "Cooling is not the only criteria one has to look at in terms of a data centres. We have to start thinking how to regulate the temperature inside a data centre. The ecosystem of a data centre plays an important role in determining power consumption levels. Every company has to constantly monitor power consumption rates and keep an eye on power usage effectiveness (PUE) inside data centers to achieve energy optimization."

"Dynamic cooling is the way forward. As per studies temperature is not the same at all the places inside a data centre. It differs from 22- 45OC. We have to segregate data centres in terms of hot and cold aisles for power optimization," he added.

"As per studies majority of data centres work only 10-15 percent of its efficiency. There lie servers that are left unused, but add on to the total power consumption. Virtualization and data centre consolidation is the way out, and this can give upto 70-80 percent of efficiency," Hazra averred.

Lalit Sawhney, Lalit Sawhney Associates, said: "Data centre consolidation was unheard of till recently. But the need for consolidation is being recognized today. Every CIO is in an attempt to achieve cost optimization. With so much of attrition taking place, we have to see how can this be achieved with minimal manpower. Further, we can look forward to data centres in providing specialized manpower and power optimization."

"Energy used up by servers has been the major concern till recently. But now, energy used to cool the servers is also equally important. For every Rs. 1 spent on power another 50 paise has to be spent on cooling," he added.

Lots have been talked about green energy and much water has flown under the bridge, but what we today is concrete action. Sunil Sood, president, IAEMP, said: "There are four categories of people, one who create hullabaloo about saving energy, but do nothing. Another set of people are those who steal energy. The next kind of people are not sensitized enough and consume power without any concern for the depleting sources as they have money to afford it, and the last category of people are those who use energy inefficiently."

"Bringing down energy consumption to the lowest possible level, promoting 'Data city' and best practices will help in achieving the mark," he added.

Sandeep Ghildiyal, practice head-platform consulting, Wipro, said: "In this era of data explosion instead of thinking on the lines of reducing power usage one has to start thinking on power optimization. As per studies, 70 percent of power is lost at the stage of power generation. And, by the time power reaches a data center, another percent is lost at the stage of distribution."