As energy resources become scarcer and more expensive, electrical efficiency is a more important performance factor in the specification and selection of large uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. There are three subtle but crucial factors that can affect the cost of operating a UPS system. Sadly, these factors are often unrecognized. Find out what they are, as well as common errors in evaluating UPS efficiency.
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Common methods for monitoring the data center environment date from the days of centralized mainframes, and include such practices as walking around with thermometers. But as data centers continue to evolve with distributed processing and server technologies that drive up power and cooling demands, you must examine the environment more closely. Monitoring equipment isn’t enough—learn how to better manage your data center.
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Blade servers have a major advantage over traditional ones—improving processing ability while using less power per server. But, with their smaller footprint, blades can be much more densely packed, resulting in racks that use up to 20 times the electrical power and generate up to 20 times the heat. This can stress power and cooling system capability. Learn how to create a power and cooling strategy with these guidelines.
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In some circumstances, the air surrounding IT equipment can be harmful to internal electronic components and lead to failure and downtime. Reliance on precision cooling solutions to maintain the proper humidity level in a computer room or data center doesn’t always assure proper humidity levels at the IT equipment air intake. Learn more about humidity, its effects, and its management in computer rooms and data centers.
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Avoidable mistakes made when installing cooling systems and racks in data centers or network rooms compromise availability and increase costs. These flaws create hot spots, decrease efficiency, and reduce cooling capacity. Although facilities operators are often held accountable for cooling problems, many problems are caused by improper deployment of IT equipment. Learn more about these mistakes and about simple remedies.
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Data center electrical efficiency is rarely planned or managed. The unfortunate result is that most data centers waste substantial amounts of electricity. Today, it is both possible and prudent to plan and measure data center efficiency. In addition to reducing electrical consumption, efficiency improvements can bring higher IT power densities. Learn how to describe, measure, and evaluate data center efficiency.
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Perimeter computer-room air handlers and central air-handling units have been used to cool data centers since the launch of the mainframe. But as rack power grew, air delivery and heat removal challenges appeared. Row-based designs address issues of proper heat removal and cold air supply—and bring energy-efficiency advantages. Learn more about row-based solutions and the benefits they can deliver to your data center.
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System planning is the Achilles’ heel of a data center physical infrastructure project. Planning mistakes can propagate through later deployment phases, resulting in delays, cost overruns, wasted time, and a compromised system. These troubles can be eliminated by viewing system planning as a data flow model, with sequenced tasks that progressively transform and refine data from initial concept to final design. Learn more.
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The average power consumed by an enclosure in a data center is about 1.7 kilowatts (kWs), but the maximum power that can be obtained by filling a rack with available high density servers, such as blade servers, is over 20 kW. Find out about the power density values of current and new data centers, and learn practical approaches to creating strategies for deploying high-density computing, with limitations and benefits.
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Virtualization is a leap forward in data center evolution. It saves energy, increases computing throughput, frees up floor space, and facilitates load migration and disaster recovery. Optimizing your power and cooling infrastructure is an essential step in realizing the full potential of virtualization. Find out why optimized infrastructure is so important, and how you can reap the full rewards of virtualization.
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Network-critical physical infrastructure includes power, cooling, racks and physical structure, security and fire protection, cabling, management systems, and service. To manage these key pieces of your network’s physical structure, you need to be able to manage devices individually. Find out how an element management solution can help you assimilate and manage the large volume of data necessary for network availability.
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Conventional methods for specifying data center density don’t provide the guidance to assure predictable power and cooling performance for the latest IT equipment. Discover an improved method that can help assure compatibility with anticipated high-density loads, provide unambiguous instruction for design and installation of power and cooling equipment, prevent oversizing, and maximize electrical efficiency.
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Conventional models for estimating the electrical efficiency of data centers are grossly inaccurate for real-world installations. Electrical loss estimates are typically made by summing inefficiencies of electrical devices, such as power and cooling equipment. Discover a more accurate efficiency model that can help you identify and quantify waste in power and cooling equipment, and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
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The traditional room-oriented approach to data center cooling has limitations in next-generation data centers. Next-generation data centers must adapt to changing requirements, support high and variable power density, and reduce power consumption and other operating costs. Find out how row- and rack-oriented cooling architectures reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), and address the needs of next-generations data centers.
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High-density IT equipment stresses the power density capability of modern data centers. Installation and unmanaged proliferation of this equipment can lead to unexpected problems with power and cooling infrastructure. Find out how to measure and predict power and cooling capacity and the rack enclosure level, to ensure predictable performance and prevent problems such as overheating, overloads, and loss of redundancy.
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Cooling for IT wiring closets is rarely planned and often only implemented after failures or overheating occur. Specifications for cooling IT wiring closets should assure compatibility with expected loads, provide clear instruction for design and installation of cooling equipment, be flexible enough to work in various types of wiring closets, and more. Discover the science and practical application of cooling strategies.
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When looking for a data center rack solution, you should be familiar with the alternatives for providing electrical power to high density racks in data centers and network rooms. Learn why your rack power system should adapt to changing requirements, and get guidelines for power rack systems that can reliably deliver power to high-density loads, while adapting to the changing needs of your data centers and networks.
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Well-informed accounting treatment of network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) assets can improve a company’s financial performance. Design and manufacturing improvements in modular and scalable uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), power distribution units (PDUs), and computer room air conditioners provide entirely new NCPI asset management opportunities with direct and measurable financial benefits. Learn how.
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Electricity costs are an increasing portion of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for data centers. But you can dramatically reduce the electrical consumption of typical data centers through appropriate design of both the network-critical physical infrastructure and IT architecture. Discover how to quantify electricity savings and learn about methods that can greatly reduce your data center electrical power consumption.
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Data center commissioning requires tight coordination between vendors, facilities, IT departments, engineers, the commissioning agent, and others. Managed properly, commissioning can deliver an unbiased evaluation of whether a new data center will succeed or not. Managed poorly, it can lead to problematic data center performance issues. Learn 10 common data center commissioning mistakes, and find out how to avoid them.
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In data center design projects, flawed management frequently leads to delays, expense, and frustration. Effective project management requires well-defined responsibilities for every manager, tight coordination among suppliers, well-defined procedures for managing change, and consistent terminology. Learn how enforcing these requirements can help your company achieve an efficient process with a predictable outcome.
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Whether dealing with a mess of their own making or an inherited one, IT professionals have several options for bringing order to chaotic data centers. Today’s technologies provide integrated rack-based data center solutions for power, air, cable routing, and management. Learn how to eliminate the root causes of data center disorder and transform your messy data center into a clean, well-managed facility.
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As the complexity of security threats increases, so do the security measures needed to protect networks. Data center operators, network administrators, and other data center professionals need to comprehend the basics of security to safely deploy and manage networks today. Find out what you need to know about the fundamentals of secure networking systems, including firewalls, network topology, and secure protocols.
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Despite advances in technology, power outages continue to be a major cause of PC and server downtime. Protecting computers with uninterruptible power supply (UPS) hardware is part of a total solution, but power management software is also needed to prevent data corruption after extended power outages. Learn about the various software configurations you can implement and the best practices that can help you ensure uptime.
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North American server installations are uniquely inefficient because of multiple circuits, use of floor space and weight, and more. A new approach to power distribution for high-density server installations saves floor space, simplifies power cabling, saves capital cost, reduces weight, and increases electrical efficiency. Learn more about how this distribution architecture can provide you with numerous benefits.
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New power and cooling technology allows for a simple and rapid deployment of self-contained high-density zones within an existing or new low-density data center. The independence of these high-density zones allows for reliable high-density equipment operation without a negative impact on existing power and cooling infrastructure—and with more electrical efficiency than conventional designs. Learn more now.
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Many of the mysteries of equipment failure, downtime, software, and data corruption are the result of a problematic power supply. Compounding the problem is that there is no standardized way to describe power problems. Learn more about common power disturbances, what can cause them, and how to safeguard your critical equipment—all described in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard terms.
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High-density servers offer a significant performance per-watt benefit. However, they can present a significant cooling challenge. Most data centers are designed to cool an average of no more than 2 kilowatts per rack, but many new servers demand over 40. Thus, innovative strategies must be used to properly cool high-density equipment. Read about 10 approaches that can help increase cooling efficiency in your data center.
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Globally, data center power and cooling infrastructure wastes more than 60 million megawatt-hours per year that do not contribute usefully to powering IT equipment. This is an enormous financial burden on industry, and is a significant public policy environmental issue. Find out about the principles of a new data center architecture that can be implemented today to dramatically improve the electrical efficiency of your data center.
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