The Raritan Blog

The Power to Change Data Center Power Management

October 4, 2012

A recent article in the New York Times, Power, Pollution and the Internet by James Glanz, took a hard look at data center power practices.  

In contrast to the article’s assumption around energy, we know that data centers are clamoring for more efficient ways to manage their power usage - it’s their number one expense. If you don’t mind taxing the Internet to download about 100 terabytes of data, Google the phrase “data center power management.”  You’ll see at least 20 companies vying to offer solutions for power management software.  With demand comes invention. For instance, intelligent power distribution units (iPDUs) that help data center managers get incredibly granular information that lets them: 

  • Make informed capacity planning decisions
  • Efficiently utilize power resources
  • Improve uptime and staff productivity
  • Save power and money
  • Measure PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and drive green data center initiatives

As a measure of interest in this area, keyword searches on Google around data center energy management were over 720+, data center energy were over 2,900 and combinations of these terms fell into the 3000+ over the past 30 days. The vast majority of these would have been data center leaders looking for help to solve the problem the New York Times article wrote about. 

If that many people are looking to solve the issue every 30 days, and if inventive companies like Raritan are working on solutions, then the outlook for the data management industry isn’t bleak - more very engaged and aware.