As power is the foundation for any data center facility, it certainly is not a feature that runs cheap. For advanced data centers, demand for more power seems to be on the rise. At the same time, site managers are heavily investing in technologies which make facilities a lot more efficient and environmental friendly.

What are the most important factors leading to increased power consumption for data centers? Let’s have a quick look.

 

Technology VS technology

Technology makes data centers friendlier towards the environment, yet it is technology generating data amounts bigger than ever before, pushing power consumption to new levels. Among the most popular technologies putting pressure into data centers, we cannot ignore:

- Internet of Things (IoT): By 2020, the world will already have 20,4 billion connected devices generating unprecedented amounts of data.

- 5G Connectivity: When 5G connectivity becomes mainstream, data centers will see a surge in power demands in order to keep empowering businesses with optimal services.

- Virtual and Augmented Reality: The amount of data transmitted to and from VR & AR devices is expected to put significant pressure on data center systems at all levels.

 

The role of DCIM is critical

Data center infrastructure management tools enable operators to go well beyond what they can physically see and understand. Among other things, it makes power usage monitoring very easy.

Leveraging this technology, operators can have access to critical information, such as where power is used so they can manage cooling, hot aisle, cold aisle, water cooling etc.

Power consumption can then be optimized, by allocating resources exactly where they are needed and reducing power consumption at parts where it is not always needed.

According to recent reports, in the US, the energy use by data centers only grew 4% between 2010 and 2014. It is estimated that it will grow another 4% from 2014 to 2020.

This percentage is perceived as “controlled and predictable” rise in consumption. It seems that things have not gone out of hand simply because the big players eagerly adopted energy efficiency software in data centers, and build servers that automatically switch to a lower power mode when they are not being used heavily.

At Lamda Hellix we have heavily invested in technologies and tools which allow us complete power management without compromising the quality of services we offer to our customers.

Find out more about Lamda Hellix.