Data Center System Energy
Planning
Midsize organizations should emulate big company solutions on a smaller scale. IT managers in midsize companies may not know it, but their problems are similar to those in large companies, particularly concerning their data centers and system planning. From initial concept to final design, no matter if we’re talking a new center or a complete overhaul, planning mistakes can magnify and expand through later deployment phases, resulting in delays, cost overruns, wasted time, and ultimately a compromised system.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. If the right, dedicated professionals are brought in on the project in the beginning and they communicate properly during all phases of the project, the end result will be the best it can be.
My experience tells me that the biggest potential for mistakes happens in the early planning activity. The biggest and most difficult issues we see data center managers grapple with is capital constraints versus the need to plan for longer term growth and capacity. This is where expertise comes in. Your energy solution vendor should be able to help you plan, design, engineer and implement your energy needs with scalable and flexible solutions.
Data Storage Green Initiatives Take a Knock
Data centres and the data storage industry have received a lot of attention recently. There is increasing concern over the amount of energy that data centres consume, as well as concern over the ability of storage devices to develop quickly enough to keep up with user demands. In a 2007 study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on electricity usage by data centres, it was shown that the cost of data storage is steadily rising, while the budgets for networking equipment and servers remained relatively steady. According to Steve Denegri, a storage consultant and financial analyst, this trend is bad news for data centres.
Denegri contends that the direction in which many data centres are heading – towards increased energy efficiency – is not the correct one, and will ultimately lead to a deepening of the storage crisis. He says that in order for the storage industry to grow, and to keep up with the demands placed in it by consumers, it needs “an ample supply of energy”. The fact that the industry is trying to work around energy limitations with green initiatives rather than addressing the problem directly places undue stress on the industry and consistently ignores real consumer needs.
Denegri says that the storage industry is trying to enable consumers to use more resources at lower levels of power consumption because that it what they believe consumers want. But Denegri contends that what consumers really want is lower utility costs. By pandering to the green trend and projecting an environmentally conscious image, the storage industry is in fact placing consumers between that much talked about rock and hard place. As companies continue to make small adjustments and adaptations to their energy efficient devices, consumers have to continually upgrade or replace their systems. So while storage companies are assured of a continuing market, consumers are paying through the nose for better “low cost” performance.
DOE and Advanced Energy Initiatives
Most Americans do not realize that the Department of Energy has been working on the advanced energy initiatives to help our nation through its energy crisis. The goal is simple to keep up with the increasing demands in the United States of America for energy without breaking the bank of the American families. Additionally to break America’s habit on Middle Eastern foreign oil; those are both very worthy goals indeed.
But actually be done? That is a fair question and the answer is of course can. Would you take a look at the United States of America from a historical standpoint? In the last century alone look what the United States of America as accomplished? We are now these single greatest civilization ever created in the history of mankind. Currently we have the lowest unemployment rate and the largest middle-class.
We have more millionaires in the United States of America than all the other first world countries combined. Our gross national product is four times as high as the second-place nation. In the first decade of this century we were first to flight. In World War II we defeated Nazi Germany. In 1962 we put a man on the moon.
