Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

2015 was the hottest year in global history, but unfortunately, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Research Institute, the average temperature on the earth's surface will hit a record high again in 2016. Not only that, the summer of 2016 will be the hottest summer ever. This marks the first time that the global average temperature will reach new highs for three consecutive years.

Summer is beautiful for most people, and we can enjoy all kinds of pleasant outdoor activities, such as golf, tennis, biking hiking, outdoor barbecue, or sunbathing to give ourselves a healthier complexion. But for data center managers, the arrival of summer means a sharp rise in temperatures and a consequent increase in energy consumption. The rise in outdoor temperature can easily lead to an increase in the room temperature in the data center, thus forcing the operation time of the computer room air conditioning (CRAC) to extend and increase energy consumption.

In the Northern Hemisphere, poor performance of IT infrastructure and total outage of IT equipment usually occur between June and August of each year. However, in January 2015, during the hot summer season in Oceania, a data center in western Australia was cut off due to an equipment failure, when a heat wave raised the temperature outside the data center to a record 44.4 degrees Celsius. The unusually hot climate, coupled with the failure of several air-conditioning equipment, caused some servers to be temporarily shut down. As a result, thousands of customers are unable to send e-mail and visit corporate websites. The outage lasted nearly seven hours.

The average cost of each data center outage is as high as $28900, while the average time for service recovery is nearly eight hours. This is a painful ordeal for data center managers, who are not in the mood to go to the beach or sit down and read idle books.

So what precautions should data center managers take to cope with the test of hot summer? Especially today, 43% of data center managers still rely on manual methods for capacity planning and forecasting. There is more than one answer to this question, especially for managers who decide to abandon the use of Excel spreadsheets and Stanley tape measures and opt for more advanced management methods.

In fact, contrary to common sense and most hardware protocols, data centers can operate at higher temperatures, even during peak loads. Assuming that the room temperature in the data center rises from the standard 21 degrees Celsius or lower to 26-27 degrees Celsius, each increase of 1 degree will save 2% of power consumption, and the annual power savings will be considerable. In order to achieve the safe improvement of the operating environment temperature of the data center, the key is to obtain the real-time data in operation.

The data Center Infrastructure Management solution (DCIM) is a software platform that combines IT devices with building facility functions, giving engineers and managers a comprehensive view of the health of the data center through DCIM. Whether local meteorologists predict a surging heat wave or the coming polar vortex, data center managers need to respond by obtaining accurate information about energy consumption, heat, airflow and utilization. In addition, the data Center Infrastructure Management solution (DCIM) enables higher levels of automation, enabling data center managers to receive operational information in a timely manner to better manage capacity planning, allocation, and cooling efficiency.

Server "high temperature" operation means to run a data center in a high temperature environment (HTA) to increase the intake temperature while keeping the server equipment component specifications unchanged, thereby reducing the energy consumption cost of refrigeration equipment in the data center and improving energy efficiency. Intel data Center Management platform (DCM) improves server efficiency and reduces operating costs by monitoring, controlling, setting, and limiting energy consumption. The DCM software platform can read the temperature levels of storage devices, power distribution units (PDU) and network equipment, so as to provide relevant information for heat dissipation and heating. For a computer room with an average power of 3 million watts of cabinets, a temperature increase of 2.2 degrees Celsius can save 20 percent of the cooling cost. For large data centers, power costs account for a large proportion of the overall operating costs, and Intel DCM software platform can help enterprises to have a deeper understanding of power and thermal energy management, which directly affects the profits and losses of enterprises.

When we look at DCIM solutions from a broader perspective, one interesting finding is that a recent survey showed that 32% of data center managers who have never used DCIM tools lack enough data to rely on to help them make day-to-day decisions or long-term forecasts. In fact, 1/5 of data centers still rely entirely on rack-level thermal sensors and spreadsheets to maximize heat dissipation efficiency.

Hot spot audits can be effectively used to review the effectiveness of other measures and make up for deficiencies in related processes, although 57% of data centers said they experienced the challenges posed by thermal energy during the survey last year. and adversely affected the operational efficiency of the data center, but 7% of the data centers still use hot spot audit as the only way to monitor temperature.

Data centers that do not use DCIM analysis tools will not be able to complete computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, let alone use hot spot audits like their peers. CFD simulation can continuously improve and adjust the cooling strategy and air conditioning selection through real-time monitoring information.

Now, let's relax. If you are an executive using Intel data Center Management platform (DCM), you can easily improve the operational efficiency of your data center and save a lot of costs, even in the heat of summer.

Intel has been committed to improving the automated management of data centers and to help managers build more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly data centers. In this regard, Intel DCM has further partnered with industry leaders to effectively reduce energy consumption without affecting data center business performance by adopting more intelligent technologies while significantly improving the efficiency of data center management operations.

For more information about Intel data Center Management products, please visit http://www.intel.cn/content/www/cn/zh/software/data-center-overview.html

Or contact us by email to dcmsales@intel.com.

The author introduces:

Jeff Klaus is the general manager of data Center Manager (DCM) solutions at Intel Corporation in the United States. At Intel, Jeff Klaus has more than 13 years of team management experience. His team is developing energy and heat management middleware products. Mr. Jeff Klaus holds an MBA degree in Business Administration from Boston University.

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