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    1. Data center experts push back on ASHRAE economizer requirements

      Explore Data Center (19 hours, 1 minute ago) Construction

      Data center experts push back on ASHRAE economizer requirements

      Data center experts have proposed an alternative to a controversial provision of last year’s ASHRAE 90.1-2010 energy standard that would allow new data centers to be built without the mandatory use of economizers. Under the original ASHRAE 90.1-2010 standard, data centers could be required to use an economizer, which uses outside air as a means of cooling the data center, despite the expense and difficulty of installing one in some locations. This would have profound implications for new data center build-outs. “I think everyone in the industry would like to see an alternative compliance path, aiming towards a results-oriented rather than prescriptive requirement,” said Julius Neudorfer, CTO of North American Access Technologies Inc., which consults with organizations looking to build out data centers.

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      Comment Mentions:   ASHRAE   Facebook   Julius Neudorfer

    2. Data center design tips: What you should know about Ashrae Tc 9.9

      Explore Data Center (Oct 28 2011) Power and Cooling

      Data center design tips: What you should know about Ashrae Tc 9.9 IT staff concerned with data center cooling and support may be able to address a lot of challenges through information available from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers. ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9, which is titled Mission Critical Facilities, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment offers a wide range of information to the IT industry, yet many data center managers, facilities professionals and even consulting engineers remain unaware of both TC 9.9 and the vast amount of material they have developed. This tip outlines key information available from ASHRAE, and how it can be useful to you. The foundation ASHARE TC 9.9 publications TC 9.9 has now published 10 books and three white papers covering a wide range of data center design and operational issues. These ASHRAE works are also referenced in the TIA-942 Data Center Standard. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   ASHRAE   Facebook

    3. Researchers hatch novel off-grid data center scheme

      Explore Data Center (Aug 1 2011)

      Researchers hatch novel off-grid data center schemeSearchDataCenter.com... with renewable energy specialists to model wind and solar patterns and develop predictive algorithms that can detect increases and decreases in the availability of power, said Bryan Berry, the lead for NYSERDA's green data center research program. ...and more » (Read Full Article)

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    4. State of server technology and operating systems: 2011

      Explore Data Center (Jul 20 2011) Cloud Computing , Servers

      State of server technology and operating systems: 2011 Server form factors. The choice of physical server form factors deployed in the data center reflects the growing influence of smaller and more powerful systems. In 2011, it's no surprise that rack-style servers compose the vast majority of server hardware. When asked what form factors are currently deployed, 71% of IT professionals use 2U servers, 63% use 1U servers, 51% use blade servers and 45% use rack form factors larger than 2U. Thirty-six percent of respondents deploy more classical form factors such as standalone towers and commodity computers. Mainframes, although relevant for very large organizations, are only used by 26% of respondents. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Facebook

    5. Power management technology for the green data center

      Explore Data Center (Jul 1 2011) Monitoring , Cloud Computing , Servers

      Power management technology for the green data centerSearchDataCenter.comYet, there is still much progress to be made, especially when it comes to creating a green data center. Most data center managers have incorporated some form of green technology, hoping to reduce power footprints and heat generation. ...and more » (Read Full Article)

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    6. Evaporative cooling picked for California data center

      Explore Data Center (Jan 5 2011) Power and Cooling , Cloud Computing , Servers

      Evaporative cooling picked for California data center What’s hot in data center cooling? You might be surprised to hear that evaporative cooling is, indeed, catching on, at least in some data center scenarios. Data center wholesaler Server Farm Realty of El Segundo, Calif., is breaking from tradition and implementing direct/indirect evaporative cooling for a facility under development. The new 26,900-square-foot facility in Santa Clara, Calif., will have no computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units on the floor, relying instead on evaporative cooling systems from San Diego-based Energy Labs. (Read Full Article)

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    7. Will pending law make California too costly for data centers?

      Explore Data Center (Jul 26 2010) Power and Cooling , Carbon Tax

      Will pending law make California too costly for data centers? Anywhere in the country, building a data center is a major capital expense. And in California, a state with higher electrical rates and ambitious environmental goals, it may get even more expensive. A perfect storm of legislative possibilities is brewing in Sacramento with potentially reverberating effects for data centers being planned in the Golden State. Sifting through the legislative possibilities, there have been proposals for a state carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, and the expansion of an existing standard, California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings, Title 24, all of which could be costly to data centers. (Read Full Article)

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    8. Look to the Kyoto wheel to maximize free data center cooling

      Explore Data Center (Jul 13 2010) Construction , Power and Cooling , Servers

      Look to the Kyoto wheel to maximize free data center cooling It's new and it's old. It's proven, but still mysterious. It's big, and a major energy saver, but it's gone largely unnoticed. It's the Kyoto wheel -- a tremendously improved design on an older idea that seems to have solved the challenges of air-side free cooling in the data center. Although it has been well proven since its introduction in 2007, the innovations that make the Kyoto wheel such an energy-efficient cooling device have not been well understood, and its potential for large savings ... (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   ASHRAE   Netherlands

    9. From the data center trenches: IT manager talks shop

      Explore Data Center (Jun 29 2010) Carbon Footprint

      From the data center trenches: IT manager talks shop John Parker -- an AFCOM member who manages the Internet Operations Group at ESRI, which makes geographic information systems software -- sat down to discuss his management style and projects with SearchDataCenter.com. Parker manages ESRI's engineering staff, change management and works to ensure high availability for the company's online applications. Parker also managed data centers in finance, insurance and healthcare industries, and did a stint as a consultant at Perot Systems. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Sun Microsystems   Oracle   Hewlett Packard

    10. Energy Star for data centers is first definitive green data center rating

      Explore Data Center (Jun 23 2010) Power and Cooling , Servers

      Energy Star for data centers is first definitive green data center rating It's finally been done: a serious certification for data centers based on energy efficiency. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star Label for data centers is based on reducing energy consumption, which should be the major determinate of "green-ness" where data centers are concerned. But this certification is not going to be easy to obtain. Only those facilities above the 75th percentile on the EPA's benchmark scale will qualify, so it will definitely be meaningful and should encourage more management interest in energy conservation. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory   LEED

    11. Data center build-out guru Mike Manos: Five data center game changers

      Explore Data Center (Jun 1 2010) Power and Cooling , Cap and Trade

      Data center build-out guru Mike Manos: Five data center game changers Mike Manos, vice president of service operations at Nokia, has had a major impact on the data center industry. As general manager of data center services at Microsoft, Manos oversaw Redmond's infrastructure ramp-up to compete with Google and pushed adoption of containerized data centers by using them in high-profile facilities. He is also a fixture on the data center conference circuit, warning IT organizations about coming carbon regulation for data centers. Other data center pros shaping the industry: Dean Nelson brings power to the people Now, Manos runs service infrastructure for cell phone provider Nokia. The cell phone is the primary way 80% of the world's population accesses the Internet, and his new job involves ramping up that infrastructure. In this Q&A, Manos talks about the evolution of the data center container and carbon regulation. This Q&A is part of a series of interviews with five ... (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Nokia   Europe   Google

    12. Data center weathers Iceland volcano

      Explore Data Center (May 4 2010)

      Data center weathers Iceland volcano Jeff Monroe, CEO of Verne Global, said the erupting volcano in Iceland has turned out to be a great real-world test for his company's decision to locate a 44-acre data center at a former NATO Command Center in Keflavik. It helps that the facility is being constructed in hardened underground bunkers. But the site is also set on 1.5 million-year-old bedrock on the west side of the country, well clear of the plume of ash spread by a prevailing western wind. And while European air traffic sat grounded, flights never stopped taking off in Keflavik. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Iceland   Europe   Verne Global

    13. Does data center uptime affect energy efficiency?

      Explore Data Center (Apr 6 2010) Servers

      The federal Environmental Protection Agency recently found that a data center's uptime has no statistically significant effect on its energy efficiency. But does the claim hold water? At first blush, it would seem that uptime would hurt data center efficiency. Typically the more uptime a facility has, the more redundancy it has to build in to account for equipment failure. But that apparently is not as large a factor as other design elements. "Tier level was not a huge predictor of energy performance," said Alexandra Sullivan, an engineer in the EPA's Energy Star program for commercial buildings. "When we looked at the data, we did not observe a significant relationship between tier and energy use." (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Uptime Institute   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

    14. EBay's Utah data center is company's largest capital investment

      Explore Data Center (Mar 18 2010) Cap and Trade , Carbon Footprint , Cloud Computing , Servers

      EBay's Utah data center is company's largest capital investment The Utah data center that eBay Inc. plans to open this spring is the single largest investment in capital the online auction giant has ever made, according to its senior global data center director. The facility, with an estimated cost $334 million, will employ energy efficient design, and seek the U.S. Green Building Council's Leader in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, said Dean Nelson, the senior director of global data center strategy, architecture and operations. "The foundation of our revenue is our data centers," he said. "We live and die by our data centers." (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   LEED   eBay

    15. New federal data center energy-efficiency guidelines on tap

      Explore Data Center (Feb 26 2010) Cloud Computing , Servers

      New federal data center energy-efficiency guidelines on tap The federal government and major industry groups are on the cusp of developing widely accepted standards for measuring a data center's energy efficiency. Along with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working with six data center industry groups: 7x24 Exchange, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the Green Grid, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the U.S. Green Building Council, and the Uptime Institute. The goals? To standardize data center efficiency metrics, which could help prevent "greenwashing," and to give data center pros tools to reduce energy consumption in their facilities. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Google   The Green Grid   Uptime Institute

    16. The value of DC power in data centers still in question

      Explore Data Center (Feb 15 2010) Servers

      The value of DC power in data centers still in question Using direct current (DC) power in data centers has long been an option, but the jury is still out on whether the downsides are worth it. For more on direct current and alternating current in the data center: Study predicts 20% savings for DC-powered data centers DC power sparks interest IBM's Power7 big iron will have DC power inputs This year, the industry is studying whether a direct current power topology is more energy efficient than traditional alternating-current (AC) power, and if so, whether the potential risks and expenses associated with it can be mitigated enough to make DC a truly viable data center power choice. The Green Grid, a nonprofit focused on data center energy efficiency, for example, is taking a closer look at the use of a DC power, and Syracuse University is trying out DC-powered computing in a data center facility. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Sun Microsystems   The Green Grid   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

    17. Green data center allows virtualization growth for Congress

      Explore Data Center (Dec 14 2009) Carbon Footprint , Cloud Computing , Servers

      Green data center allows virtualization growth for Congress Skyrocketing energy costs in the data center aren't just a corporate issue. Server consolidation, utilization efficiency and virtual machine sprawl also challenge the biggest enterprise in the United States: the federal government. Greening the Capitol Two years ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched an initiative designed to reduce the carbon footprint of the United States Capitol. The implementation of a green data center by House Information Resources fits into this broader context. Download a full report here. Over the past several years, the operators of the data center that supports operations at the U.S. House of Representatives reduced energy consumption by over 50%, saving taxpayers money and allowing the rollout of server virtualization to member offices. That effort took hard work, but the return in energy efficiency and carbon footprint reduction also helped improve security, disaster recovery and brought the flexibility necessary to enable desktop virtualization in the ... (Read Full Article)

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    18. Using ITIL to bridge the IT-facilitie...

      Explore Data Center (Aug 24 2009)

      Using ITIL to bridge the IT-facilitie... At first blush, it may seem absurd to use the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and energy efficiency together in the same sentence. After all, ITIL is a set of IT best practices governing, among other things, change, problem, asset and capacity management. It provides a systematic way to assure availability and reliability as IT rolls out new applications, does maintenance, installs severs, virtualizes, and reacts to problems and threats. Seen from another perspective, ITIL is also a doorway to IT culture. It provides a language that the employees in the IT shop use and can relate to. That's where the opportunity arises. If the ITIL language and framework can be applied to all facets of the data center on both the IT and the facilities sides, it can help both sides of the data center to communicate and shrink the IT-facilities divide. (Read Full Article)

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    19. Four ways to extend data center UPS battery life

      Explore Data Center (Aug 20 2009) Power and Cooling

      Four ways to extend data center UPS battery life Data center backup power is a crucial element to uptime and availability. During an outage, Uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) enable the switch from utility power to backup generator power. But there is a relatively unreliable and expensive variable to most UPSes: batteries. "Simply stated, batteries represent three evils: They are big, they are expensive, and they are expendable," said Pete Sacco, the president of Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based engineering firm PTS Data Center Solutions. "Anything you can do to prolong the life of your batteries will indeed extend the availability of your data center." So here are four ways that data center facility managers can extend the life of their UPS batteries. (Read Full Article)

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    20. In measuring data center power use, more (info) is more

      Explore Data Center (Jul 27 2009) Monitoring , Power and Cooling , Cloud Computing , Servers

      In measuring data center power use, more (info) is more Today, data center managers find that they can't improve what they can't see, and so they are looking to measure power downstream from a data center's utility meter. According to SearchDataCenter.com's Data Center Decisions purchasing intentions survey, 84% of 670 respondents said that reducing data center power consumption was important. And yet according to the same report, 36% didn't know how their power bills compared with the previous year. This lack of awareness, however, has started to change. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Google   Microsoft Corp

    21. Data center managers plan for power density jumps

      Explore Data Center (Jun 18 2009) Construction , Servers

      Data center managers plan for power density jumps A recent survey of Emerson Network Power and Liebert data center users found that respondents plan to double the power densities in their racks in future facilities. The Data Center Users Group survey asked about 120 data center managers questions on data center efficiency. Energy efficiency is now one of the top three concerns for nearly half (47%) of survey respondents, a result that surveys over the past year or so have confirmed. In a similar survey by the Data Center Users Group (DCUG) four years ago, energy efficiency was hardly ever listed as a top concern. Among the findings was that data center managers now design future facilities to handle 15 kW per rack on average, more than double the 7.4 kW-per-rack average today. Langan Integrated Engineering and Environmental Solutions Inc. is one company that has built more efficient facilities. The Elmwood Park, N.J.-based engineering firm ... (Read Full Article)

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    22. Data center air recycling saves cash-strapped greenhouse

      Explore Data Center (May 14 2009) Servers

      By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer Forget about a green data center. The University of Notre Dame's high-performance computing (HPC) department has taken things a step further. It now reuses the heat generated by its servers to warm up a historic ... (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Sun Microsystems   Uptime Institute   Hewlett-Packard Co.

    23. Configuration management skills are vital to going green in the ...

      Explore Data Center (May 7 2009)

      IT organizations are pushing to reduce their operating costs and go green. In pursuit of these objectives they are consolidating data centers, addressing power consumption, implementing virtualization and assessing cloud computing. As usual, IT is in a rush to buy a solution, click "install" and move on to the next crisis. The problem is that the supposed solutions are built on a fragile house of cards, because many IT organizations and data centers do not have an accurate understanding of the services they provide and the discrete server and application configuration items (CIs) that make up those services. This problematically violates one of the most basic tenets of process improvement -- that the people, processes and technologies of the current state are accurately understood. (Read Full Article)

      Comment Mentions:   Uptime Institute

    24. Closing the green gap: Expanding data centers with environmental ...

      Explore Data Center (Apr 24 2009) Carbon Footprint , Emissions

      Closing the green gap: Expanding data centers with environmental ... What first steps would you recommend to a company interested in developing a green data center? GS: Short of reading my book, is to recognize the green gap along with separating green hype from the many different facets or faces of what green can mean ... (Read Full Article)

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