In the Data Center Knowledge is (Lower Cost) Power

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Gento

In my last post,(link) I described the great volumes of power consumption and environmental data you can get from Raritan’s iPDUs, and how that can help you lower energy costs in the data center. We only scratched the surface, though, of the analytics and reporting capabilities of Power IQ software, and how it enables best practices in power management.

Some of the smarts we’ve put into Power IQ come right from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Here, I’m referring to their Psychrometric chart, a guide to optimal temperature and humidity ranges for the data center. You can easily set these parameters to serve as notification thresholds for Raritan’s temperature and humidity probes, or competitors’ probes.

The great news: ASHRAE has recently extended the ranges in that chart, giving you a tolerance that allows you to safely save on energy costs—as noted above, up to 4% for every degree raised.

What’s even cooler (no pun intended)—you can put your own temperature and humidity parameters into Power IQ. That’s useful because many server manufacturers have reengineered their products in recent years to handle harsher environments. Some have even certified their servers to run in 90-to-95-degree environments. You can take those manufacturer’s settings now and incorporate them into your ASHRAE Psychrometric chart. Now you can selectively raise your air temperature and save more on energy.

With the global view of temperatures you get from Power IQ, you can see where you’re over-provisioned or under-provisioned across rows, aisles, and even multiple data centers. You can even see where you’re pumping too much CO2 into the air. Now there’s a feature that’s not only good for your bottom line; it’s the right thing for the environment.

Data Center Energy Provider Rebates

But there’s more: Because Power IQ can actually report on how much CO2 emission has been reduced, that metric yields dollar savings as well. Do a search on “data center energy rebates” and you’ll see that if you can document your CO2 reduction, many energy providers will give you a lower rate.

Being able to say you’ve reduced CO2 emissions by W, KwH by X, power costs by Y, and lowered rates by Z percent makes you a hero in your data center.

Also, Power IQ has joined the great mobile migration. If you want to be not only alerted but empowered to take action if the temperature around a certain server exceeds a certain threshold, there’s a Power IQ app for that. You can get an alert that while you’re away from the data center and proceed to power cycle the affected device, right from your iPhone.

Click here to learn more about Raritan data center power solutions