Energy efficiency for co-location, cloud and hosted IT environments

BY AND LARGE, this emerging demand is being met by a new breed of data centre service provision through cloud, co-location and multi-tenant hosting. While traditional co-location supplies resilient facility infrastructure and related services for customers to manage their own IT equipment, the new breed can provide services at all three layers of a cloud: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Cloud providers can provide services ranging from outsourcing of all infrastructure and applications to a hybrid model that enables organizations to keep their computing resources in-house and leverage additional resources when needed.

Why energy efficiency?
In any data centre, the benefits of an energy efficient design and operation of infrastructure and systems for both the facility and IT will reduce costs (both CapEx and OpEx), and help organisations adhere to industry standards and government regulations. When smart energy management is added through strategies such as right-sizing equipment, optimising the environment and proper planning, all data centre service providers have a recipe for a successful, lucrative and efficient business.

Reasons for data centre energy inefficiency
When it comes to data centres, a slew of likely suspects contribute to energy inefficiency, including over-sizing power and cooling systems, poor capacity planning, underutilised IT equipment, colder than needed space temperatures and stranded power, cooling or space capacity. Managing and optimising data centre operations and capacities in a complex, fast paced and changing environment on a day to day basis is challenging, particularly when it comes to Cloud, Wholesale and Multi-Tenant Co-location providers.

Aging data centres cannot support the business requirements of today’s highly digitised companies. Add to that the high upfront costs and long timeframes for new data centre builds and the need for scalable, agile solutions, and cloud and co-location facilities make perfect sense for companies that need to expand their computing capabilities in a short timeframe without breaking the bank.

Given this new reality, the growth in cloud, managed services hosting and co-location is starting to become the “new normal,”. The ever present drive for energy efficiency has become an increasingly important part of the equation for these providers. Energy efficiency improvements in data centre facilities result in direct business benefits that impact the bottom line, including OpEx (energy) savings and a lower carbon footprint. This makes the business more productive while also helping environment.

Specific needs of multi-tenant providers and common challenges they face
At a high level, all data centres require the same kind of facility and technology , but the new breed of data centres require additional infrastructure and management technology to ensure they are operated and utilised as efficiently as possible at all times. This may include real-time monitoring and control of critical infrastructure, IT equipment, applications and environmental conditions, integrated tenant billing, and even Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology and CFD modelling. These capabilities help to improve efficiency and also enable accurate reporting to customers of the facility. Visibility is a key requirement for running an efficient data centre while maintaining continuous service and operation.

The primary challenges that multi-tenant data centre providers face include capital and operating cost control, capacity optimisation, speed to market, and offer differentiation. Energy efficiency is a way to help reduce costs, increase business optimisation, abide by legislative regulations and provide a cutting-edge differentiator for businesses that want to outsource their IT infrastructure to a “green” and highly efficient multi-tenant data centre facility.

Other challenges include the financial pressure of securing capital and executing a scalable, profitable growth model; cycle time when it comes to speed to market, speed to incorporate technology and business model iterations; and competitive pressure as many large and small players are entering the market.

Tactics and tools for building energy efficient data centres
The ideal power system for cloud and co-location providers allows for scalable bulk power and cooling. For example, scalable uninterruptible power supply (UPS) solutions allow bulk power to increase seamlessly over time, which allows the system to operate at a more efficient rate with more load than a lightly loaded system. It also allows for capital preservation as you can scale power and cooling when needed instead of building and waiting for occupancy. A modular/ scalable cooling platform will allow the same benefits. Maintaining proper air flow, white space aisle layout and not overcooling the white space can have a dramatic impact on energy performance. Making sure there is a centralised, optimised approach to the environmental parameters of the white space is also critical, for example ensuring there are no units cooling while there are other units in a re-heat mode. Poor airflow and/ or inadequate space layout is a big contributor to hot spots, which act as a cooling “vampire” creating inefficiencies.

More than 50 percent air leakage is routinely observed in data centres, meaning that the cold air bypasses the IT equipment intakes and flows directly back to the cooling units. This leads to stranded cooling distribution capacity. Separation of hot and cold air streams will optimise the cooling system and make it more efficient, and may free up electrical capacity previously required by cooling plant and HVAC units. A centralised ultrasonic humidification system requires a lot less energy than individual humidification for CRAC units, decreasing energy consumption and providing a more uniform environment. In addition, this type of centralised system will reduce maintenance costs by eliminating the annual replacement of humidification bottles. It can also reduce the electrical feeder size required to supply electricity to the CRAC units because a smaller circuit is required for the re-heat and humidification system.

Service providers can take advantage of Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software to help manage and monitor all processes and equipment in any data centre. Application-specific DCIM provides a customised solution for cloud and co-location facilities. It provides facilities, IT and CXOs with detailed, real-time analytics, risk awareness, data centre capacity management and operation status to initiate automated actions or recommend manual actions, helping them optimise performance and decrease downtime. It also provides insight into usage and availability on the tenant level, to enable capabilities like detailed chargeback for power and integrated tenant billing and support. Data centres with multiple tenants can conduct capacity planning and monitoring to mitigate both financial and operational risk. This allows operators to recognise and recover stranded capacity, driving efficiencies in on-boarding and off-boarding clients, recovering lost revenue, and shortening investment payback periods. Proper capacity planning and monitoring also helps prevent overloading and overselling capacity, ensuring reliability and a positive client experience.

Co-location providers can implement scalable power and cooling equipment to avoid over-sizing. This can easily be done by implementing high-voltage distribution through 415/240V AC power distribution. Along with variable-speed drives on pumps and chillers, this will improve power and cooling efficiency at partial load and on cool days.

The future of co-location, multi-tenant and cloud data centres
One of the most important goals for multi-tenant, co-location, cloud, and hosted facilities is to maximise their space and operational cost effectively. As such energy efficiency needs to be an integral part of the process starting from the planning and continuing through the entire life cycle of the data centre. It is possible to optimise existing spaces and gain some advantages and certainly planning a new
build with energy “wise” strategies can be a big part of a successful data centre.