Some perspective on the data center power problem

A boutique analyst firm based in New York City called The 451 Group has released a report and survey information along with suggestions about how corporate IT managers can evaluate and manage energy usage.

The study is called Eco-Efficient IT: The eco-imperative and its impact on suppliers and users. Of course, you have to buy it to get the complete findings, but I participated on a briefing with 451 Research Director Andy Lawrence earlier this week to glean some highlights.

Here are some of the things that I learned from Lawrence’s presentation: - Small but rising: The 451 Group believes that between 0.8 percent and 1.5 percent of global electricity use is attributable to corporate data centers. While this might not sound like all that much, the big problem is that data center power consumption is set to double every year for the next five years. So, it’s very much on the rise. When you consider that the cost of electricity may rise between 6 percent and 10 percent in the same timeframe, there is definitely cause for concern. - Data centers aren’t the only culprit: If you look within any given company’s IT organization, data centers are still the biggest electricity eaters. Between servers and storage, cooling systems and other equipment, they account for about 30 percent of the electricity use in a given midsize company. Desktops and printers, though, eat up quite a bit too: Approximately 15 percent in many midsize enterprises. - Mobile devices are a big wild card: If you consider all the battery power consumed by a cell phone, PDA or notebook computer, plus all the juice needed to recharge them, constantly, it’s not unreasonable to assume that mobile devices might actually consume more electricity than data centers in the future. So, many companies now are beginning to look at mobile power alternatives.

The 451 Group makes says three emerging technologies can help IT organizations reach the low-hanging fruit in terms of ratcheting back power consumption quickly through a combination of best practices and new products. They include: - Adopting energy-efficient microprocessor technologies; many of the latest servers are being configured with the same sorts of power management technologies that have become commonplace in notebooks. - Embracing virtualization at the server and storage level, which has dramatically improved utilization. - Investing in state-of-the-art cooling products that include sensors and other monitoring technologies that help direct cooling to the servers and other equipments that need it most.

One final thought. Many CIOs and IT managers have not up until now been charged with managed power consumption concerns. This is about to change, the firm believes, although facilities managers will also be intimately involved.