DTC 2014 Manchester Review

THIS YEAR THE PROGRAMME had two keynote speakers. The morning keynote was delivered by Dr Dirk Harryvan of Cerios Green B.V. in the Netherlands. Dirk focussed on indicators for energy efficient computing, a very timely topic with the number of recent initiatives looking at this from both a research and industrial perspective.

Dirk put it to the audience that they should seriously consider the efficiency of the computer and its software when speaking about data centre efficiencies. I would suggest that these issues are of importance to one of the major research questions for data centres, that being about how we measure a data centre’s productivity. Dirk’s keynote set a vibrant tone to the conference.

The afternoon keynote was presented by Don Beaty from DLB Associates Consulting Engineers in the USA. Don brought the ASHRAE perspective to designing data centres and provided insight into the issues of growth in IT loads per rack as well as aspects associated with higher operational temperatures, all with reference to the ASHRAE TC9.9 thermal envelopes. Don started his presentation by picking up on a number of issues raised in some of the morning talks and invited us all to wait with bated breath for the next book in the Datacom TC9.9 series. The conference had three main themed sessions. The first was entitled Sustainability and Life Cycle and contained two presentations, one from Dr Beth Whitehead from Operational Intelligence looking at why the Data Centre needs a life cycle perspective. Beth presented some startling facts; one that I recall very well is that the embodied greenhouse gasses (GHG) in the IT components are greater than the operational GHG emission from the combined Mechanical and Electrical infrastructure.
The second talk in this session was from Esther van Bergen from Green IT Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Esther took the audience on a whistle stop tour of the various “green” data centre and IT related projects running in the forward thinking city of Amsterdam.

The second session, chaired by my colleague Professor Harvey Thompson from the University of Leeds, introduced those all important aspects of Data Centre Operation and Management. The session kicked off to an exciting start with Professor Ian Bitterlin, CTO from Emerson Network Power Systems convincing the audience that there is a play off between efficiency and risk.

Ian brought up the turn of the one in the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric and perhaps along with Dirk strengthened the argument that the energy efficiency of the IT hardware and to certain extent the software should be considered in the topic of data centre efficiency.

As is always the case with Ian, the presentation had some nuggets of thought provoking points about the future already being here with some potentially spectacularly low PUE values from air cooled systems. Steve Bowes-Phipps from the University of Hertfordshire followed with a presentation of a project that involves Concurrent Thinking’s DCIM offering using some inexpensive hardware and existing hardware in the data centre, to monitor and report on carbon and power usage.

Following Steve, an interesting and hopefully thought provoking material was delivered in a duo presentation by researchers from the University of Leeds, Nic Delbosc and Greg de Boer, on the potential of using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations in real-time as a potential early warning system for data centre operational problems.

Pete O’Sullivan of Digiplex presented their latest Nordic Data Centre developments and corroborated Ian Bitterlin’s point about the “future being here” in terms of using indirect evaporative cooling units without any need for compressors, although this is now possible to do throughout most of Europe taking advantage of minor excursions into the ASHRAE allowable range of server operation.

Mark Seymour, CTO of Future Facilities, ended the session with the very important topic of capacity erosion in data centres and the point that it is continuously evolving and therefore should be monitored. Mark’s presentation clearly highlighted the need for prediction and simulation as a tool for potential better planning and management.
The afternoon and third session, chaired by Professor Dennis Kehoe, Vice Chairman of the Data Centre Alliance and CEO of AIMES Grid Services, covered a number of research projects and activities.

From 451 Research, European Research Manager, Andrew Donoghue presented the EU Framework 7 funded project, RenewIT, covering its objective of creating a simulation tool that would help to inform integration of different Renewable Energy Systems within data centres and their geographical location.

Dr Rabih Bashroush from the University of East London introduced the challenges and benefits of a holistic approach to data centres – treating them as fully integrated systems and taking advantage of the integration of IT with facilities. Under the research theme of this session, a second EU Framework 7 funded project, GEYSER, was presented by Vicky Georgiadou from Green IT Amsterdam.

GEYSER is looking at how data centres can integrate into smart cities as energy prosumers and operate within emerging green energy markets. The penultimate presentation, given by myself, introduced the Cool Aspects of a Data Centre Technology Roadmap, where at the University of Leeds we have assessed the three different classes of liquid cooling solutions for heat capturing potential, namely indirect, direct and total. Simon Campbell-Whyte, Executive Director of the Data Centre Alliance, gave the final presentation on the EU Framework 7, Regions of Knowledge, funded project, PEDCA, which is developing a Joint Action Plan to position the European data centre industry with competitive advantages.

The event would not be possible without our sponsors. The conference included two parallel Technology Focus Sessions giving the sponsors the opportunity to highlight their technological and research developments, which by the number of questions at the end of each presentation was well received by the audiences. The sponsors of DTC14 were: Concurrent Thinking, Dataracks, Emerson Network Power Systems, Enlogic, Excool, Iceotope, Riello UPS, Schneider Electric, Socomec, Server Technology, Uninterruptible Power Supplies and Workspace Technology Ltd. I am grateful to them all for their support of DTC14.

The networking and social aspect of the conference was continued into the evening with drinks sponsored by Teledata, a Manchester data centre, followed by an evening dinner. My special thanks to Jeremy Hartley for his loud ‘call to order’ and to Professor Ian Bitterlin for his three minutes of conference highlights.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Manchester next year on the 14th July 2015 for DTC15.