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The price of real estate might be going down in a lot of places, but not in the data centre, where top-end space can cost as much as US$20,000 per square foot. (1)
As a result, businesses are using blades to pack more computing power into ever smaller spaces. For example, using four HP BladeSystem enclosures, it’s possible to pack 128 processors into a space that in previous years, might have housed 40 or fewer.
But this approach has brought on a new problem: waste heat. Not only is waste heat, well, wasteful, but removing it requires even more power. A recent study by HP and the Uptime Institute found that up to 63 percent of power used goes just to cooling IT equipment. (2)
The problem is amplified because server needs have exploded. “Where businesses used to have a few mainframes, they now have 4,000 to 10,000 servers to support,” says John Humphreys, program director for analyst firm IDC’s enterprise platforms group.
So, the search is on for technologies that can reduce waste heat and the need for extra cooling. “Every one of our customers is looking at power consumption,” says Stoyan Kenderov, director of product marketing for the customer division of Amdocs.
“Many say that just by deploying blades with power-saving features, they can add new human resources that are paid for by the savings,” he explains.
Going to extremes
But extreme density calls for extreme cooling. HP, for example, has adopted a “chip-to-chiller” approach that starts with cooler-running microprocessors. It then adds power-and-cooling auditing services such as Thermal Mapping. And then tops it off with recent patented innovations such as Dynamic Smart Cooling, which controls chillers and other data centre cooling systems.
This emphasis on a holistic approach to cooling has already started to show savings. “The new blades have thermal management features that can cool data centres better, which can have massive impact in the data centre,” says Kenderov.
Recent data bears out Kenderov’s observation. In a recent side-by-side comparison of an HP BladeSystem with an equivalent set of rack-mounted servers, an HP BladeSystem used about 25 percent less energy and floor space than the equivalent rack-mounted system.
The BladeSystem's Thermal Logic technology delivers savings using a novel, patented cooling architecture; special Active Cool fans; Dynamic Power Saver (which puts power supplies on reserve when not needed); and accurate monitoring and control (to allocate the right amount of power and cooling to match demand).
The MCS G-2: cool two racks at once
In a recent advance, HP announced the Modular Cooling System G2, which can cool two racks at once for twice the cooling power of HP’s single-rack cooling systems. When used with two racks, the MCS G32 can achieve up to 17.5 kW of cooling, handling up to 35 1U servers per rack. In internal testing with 64 ProLiant server blades and 128 multicore processors, the G-2 removed 95 to 97 percent of the heat load, enabling 128 multicore processors to operate comfortably in their compact enclosures. A Web management interface shows important information, including all monitored values, on one page. Of course, it works with HP Systems Insight Manager, for easy control and regulation of important power-and-cooling variables.
Finally, nobody thinks that any single advance is likely to solve all the heating and cooling problems of data centres everywhere. That’s why it’s so important to attack the problem on many levels: from chip to chiller. So, with apologies to Australia's Little River Band, it’s not just “time for a cool change.” It’s time for a lot of cooling changes, all of which add up to a very cool effect on your enterprise.
Learn more
» Read the latest news
» Blades vs. other servers
» Servers
» The Real Story about blades and energy efficiency
» The Real Story about Dynamic Smart Cooling
» Savings and environmental wins
» Blades and server management
(1) HP, Christopher Malone, PhD, Christian Belady, P.E. “Metrics to Characterize Data Center Equipment Energy Use,” Digital Power Forum, Richardson, Texas (September 2006), and “How to Cut Data Center Utility Bills,” HP, C.Belady, P.E., September 2, 2007
(2) W. Pitt Turner, P.E. and John H. Seader, P.E., "Dollars per kW Hour Plus Dollars per Square Foot Are a Better Data Center Cost Model Than Dollars per Square Foot Alone." The Uptime Institute, Inc.: Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2006, accessed Feb. 4, 2008.
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