I recently attended the AFCOM® Data Center World trade show in Las Vegas and it was great to see so many attendees after all the recent negative news around a recession and an economic downturn. The large number of attendees willing to spend 4+ days at a trade show & conference spurred some thoughts.  Could the data center industry be thriving despite soft economic times? Perhaps, there is a need to keep abreast of the latest technologies and to continually refresh one’s IT education.

Finally, I think we’re at a time where the stars are in alignment: we’re running out of power, cooling, and space, and we’re trying to figure out how to be “Green”, more efficient and economical in how we utilize precious resources.  Many of the speakers at DCW spoke about data centers going green and the need to conserve power both for operational effectiveness and concerns for the environment. 

Following are some approaches to conserving power in data centers from both an IT and Facilities perspective:

IT: IT equipment
   • Virtualization
   • Consolidation
   • Upgrade technology
   • Decommission servers
   • Move applications and jobs to virtualized servers and shut down those servers that remain but are now not needed
Facilities: Cooling and moving air
   • Avoid overcooling
   • Economizers
   • Minimize humidification (but not so much that ESD becomes a concern)
   • Reduce hot and cold air mixing by implementing hot/cold air separation
   • Use blanking plates to minimize unwanted recirculation 
   • Raised floor grommets to reduce bypass airflow
   • Optimize floor layout (CFD)
   • Closely couple supply and returns to the cooling load

Where are you and your organization are with respect to monitoring, managing and conserving electricity in your data centers?  What are/were your first steps?  I’m curious to know…