DATA CENTER

Data Center Consolidation

Whenever possible, consolidate data centers. Data centers are most cost-effective and efficient when running at a high capacity. A newer highly efficient consolidated data center has much lower total costs (per square foot or per delivered watt) than many smaller data centers. Every data center costs money in space, power, cooling, bandwidth, administration, maintenance, and support. You may be able to save a building, floor, or room by consolidating data centers. The cost savings in consolidating data centers might not be short term, but it has a significant long-term impact. Several large companies are consolidating worldwide data centers into a few super data centers that service their facilities. One company estimated savings up to $2,000 per square foot of consolidated data center space.

Automation and Remote Management

New tools and utilities are being continually developed to automate support of the data center, improve efficiencies, provide remote management, and improve availability of your infrastructure. These tools save a considerable amount of labor costs and reduces costs of outages. They move from reactive maintenance to proactive and preventive support services, which significantly improves the efficiency of the IT support staff. Remote diagnostic tools reduce IT support costs and enables consolidation of data centers and cost reduction.

Power Usage and Green IT

Companies spend a lot of money on wasted energy including servers or desktops that sit idle at night. Each minute that a computer uses less power translates to reduced electricity costs. One company estimated that powering and cooling one server cost them an estimated $3,000. Managing power usage results in cost savings. One company saved millions of dollars by implementing a power management tool, while another estimated cost reductions of around 20 percent. By turning off unused desktops, laptops, and servers, they saved $40 per machine per year and received utility company rebates of over $10 per computer. They also improved security as turned-off machines cannot be infected or compromised. Synchronize power management with maintenance and update schedules.

Top Tip: Power usage

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"We significantly reduced power usage through data center improvements and replacing old equipment with newer, more efficient equipment. We implemented best practices with hot and cold aisles, raising the temperature in the data center, shutting down computers, and making people more power conscious. We found out that the cost of cooling machines can be more than the cost of buying a machine."

—Anne Agee
University of Massachusetts,
Boston

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Another company saved cooling costs by raising operating temperatures in the data center from 75 to 77 degrees, using variable-speed fans in the computer room air-conditioning units, optimizing the airflow under floors, and implementing cold-containment techniques. Consider implementing more energy-efficient servers, disk, and other hardware. Audit and review energy bills to find overcharges. One company estimated a 60 percent savings in energy costs with consolidation, virtualization, installing newer and more efficient equipment, and implementing tools providing power management.

Industry averages show that servers account for the most of data center energy costs (31 percent), followed by heating, ventilation, and air conditioning at 17 percent, storage devices at 14 percent, and network equipment at 13 percent. Virtualization and consolidation are two of the most popular and beneficial green initiatives with companies estimating approximately 15 percent savings each.