Power supply is the lifeblood of data centers, and the demand for power in each data center is increasing year by year. This is because data centers are adding more powerful and numerous servers, which means more power is required. Because most energy is converted into heat, the need for electrical energy to cool the operating environment increases. More data processing and archiving also means increased demand for data storage, and guess where that leads: Storage systems also need power, whether for driving or cooling.
This is a serious problem from the following three aspects:
First of all, consuming large amounts of electricity is not environmentally friendly. At present, the audit of carbon footprints is becoming more and more stringent, and it is not a good thing for enterprises to become "big consumers" of energy.
Secondly, from a practical point of view, the cost of electricity is very high, and the cost of electricity to maintain the operation of a data center is huge: electricity costs account for a large proportion of current data center operating costs.
Third, the biggest problem is that the power supply to any data center is limited, at least within short messages and for a period of time. It may seem like you can add any hardware, but ultimately it comes down to a balance between power supply and floor space.
There are several ways to reduce energy consumption that can significantly reduce power costs while maintaining a minimum power supply for the data center infrastructure.
1. Server virtualization
Servers account for about half of the entire data center's power consumption, so reducing the number of running servers can significantly reduce power costs. Because a server consumes no less power when its production capacity is 30% than when its production capacity is 60%, consolidating servers and improving utilization can also significantly reduce power consumption.
2. Modernization of cooling system
HVAC systems are typically the second largest power consuming system in data centers, accounting for 37% of data center energy consumption, according to estimates from the Data Center Users Group. The cooling system is very inefficient. This is because air conditioning systems are only at their highest efficiency when operating within a fairly narrow range, and because most data centers have a large amount of heat to handle each year, cooling systems are often overloaded with cooling tasks that exceed their optimal range. Often, replacing some traditional air conditioning equipment with modern, modular and more efficient components for cooling can save a lot of energy.
In some special climate conditions, more energy-saving methods can be adopted, such as using external cold air instead of electricity for cooling. This reduces the use of inverter air conditioners, thereby saving electricity.
3. Data center reorganization
If data centers have expanded significantly over the past few years, servers have been installed everywhere without any planning. This results in localized overheating, and an overloaded IT environment makes it difficult to ensure optimal operation of the cooling system.
Reorganizing the physical location of data center servers, such as configuring cold and hot aisles, can significantly reduce the load on the cooling system, although the total heat handling capacity does not change. You can use reassembly to seal air holes and leaks (these holes are usually unnecessary and serve only to connect cables to individual servers). The result of such a hole is similar to leaving a car window open while having the air conditioner on.
4. Memory upgrade
Data storage is also one of the main reasons for high power consumption in data centers. Updating your storage system can significantly reduce this expense. Generally speaking, new disks are more energy efficient than older disks, and one high-capacity disk consumes less energy than two low-capacity disks of the same capacity. Storage virtualization can also improve energy efficiency by improving memory utilization and avoiding excessive provision of storage space. Powering empty memory space is a huge waste of power. For some applications, SATA disks can be used instead of fiber optic drives because the latter consumes twice as much power per terabyte as the former.
5. Transformer upgrade
Transformers are required to update the data center's AC power supply. A lot of electrical energy is lost in this process. Many cheap transformers have an efficiency of only 80%, but through upgrades the utilization rate can reach 90% or more, so that power losses can be significantly reduced.
6. Update server chips to low power consumption products
As server hardware reaches the end of its useful life, there is a clear need for server CPUs and other components that consume less power (such as the disk drives and transformers mentioned earlier). For example, Intel's Woodcrest dual-core Xeon processors are three times more energy efficient than their older single-core Xeon processors, at least according to the company's product data. Even in some cases, for the purpose of energy conservation, the server should be updated before it reaches the end of its life.
7. Conduct software audits
There's no point in running more servers than you need, so create a clear, up-to-date diagram of which servers need to be running and why, so it's clear which applications can be moved to another server. Software audits can also help identify idle servers.
8. Increase the temperature
The data center hardware needs to be updated, or perhaps the cooling temperature is outside the specified range. Raising the data center temperature by one degree brings the temperature within the recommended range, and you can reduce power consumption. An efficient planning and modernization of the modular system allows different temperatures to be maintained within the agreed equipment to ensure that the cooling range is within the specified range.