Tomorrow’s technology is already available today.
In a study released in late august, The American National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) targeted data centres in the United States that consume immense - and ever-growing - amounts of energy. According to their estimations, overseas engine rooms devour 91 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and certain trends indicate that by 2020, this amount will increase at least to 140 billion kilowatt-hours. We could think that most of this energy is consumed by large technology enterprises, however Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and others pay particular attention to the cutting of their data centres’ operational costs and simultaneously to the reduction of carbon dioxide emission. These large enterprises have converted and are converting their data centres into energy efficient by the optimisation of their engine rooms and the utilisation of renewable energy sources. For them, environmental awareness is on one hand profitable due to energetic reasons on the other hand it’s essential in a PR aspect, since they cannot leave an attack surface on themselves.
NRDC stated that most part of the wastage can be connected to the silent majority, more accurately to small and medium enterprises and to data centres providing company services, whose efficiency is not only doubtful in respect of sustainability. Their research shows that the majority of these data centres use obsolete equipment both on the side of IT and engine room infrastructure (cooling, electricity supply), and do not optimise their servers’ functioning. It would already be a great improvement for their energy efficiency indicators (e.g. PUE), if decision makers and IT managers would avail themselves of the services of consultancy firms, who by means of loss exploration could reveal problematic areas, and if necessary, could offer alternatives whose certain steps are feasible without any further investment. We asked Tamás Balogh, director of business development at Persecutor Ltd. about Hungarian circumstances and green data centre solutions available in our country.
PERS: What is the general PUE indicator of the corporate data centres of Hungary (if we’re allowed to generalise of course)?
B.T.: There are several studies, whose reliability is naturally quite questionable. In general terms, the PUE indicators of collocation centres and hosting service providers, which are considered to be modern in a national context, are around 1.5-2 (according to their contracts), while the PUE number of corporate and governmental data centres is typically around 1.7-2.5, primarily due to low utilisation rates, overinsurance and improper operation.
PERS: What type of cooling system is used by these centres, what do they do about the heat output and where do they get the energy from?
B.T.: A 99% of the national data centres does nothing about heat output. There are a few pilot projects. In order to step ahead in respect of heat recovery, there are still at least two cardinal steps that have to be taken, such as ASHRAE recommendations, ratification of engine room temperature and humidity limits and also air side separation and thus the achievement of temperature rise in hot isles. Today these two issues are handled incorrectly in 80-90% of the engine rooms. Cooling in Hungary is principally solved by means of cooling systems with direct evaporation (water-based refrigerant) or with a water/glycol refrigerant. Liquid-cabinet cooling, in the interior side, rackline cooling and also dry cooling solutions became widespread among more conscious clients. Nevertheless, less than 50% of the potential of cooling optimisation is exploited.
PERS: On an annual basis what are the costs of electricity of an engine room with a weak PUE indicator? Can you give specific examples?
B.T.: A typical engine room in Hungary disposes of a 50-100 kW capacity, based on which, if we’re counting with a PUE of 2, the annual electricity fee is around 50 million HUF. Ergo the reduction of the infrastructure’s consumption by 30-50% can mean about 10 million HUF cost saving annually, from which the necessary investment can be recovered in 2-5 years. However in many cases there is no need for even this; it is sufficient to revise the adjustment of the already existing machines and to change the operational approach in order to reduce costs. Let me mention as an example a still widespread view, according to which, in an engine room it has to be cold; thus, if a leader wanders into the company’s server room and it is not "freezing" inside, then he feels there’s a problem. Simplifying a little bit, on the contrary we are happy if in an engine room it is hot, but not too hot.
PERS: How does the future’s green data centre look like?
B.T.: Many people are dedicated to this question. If by future we mean let’s say the year 2025, then I think there will be a considerably higher energy density and operational temperature compared to those of today. Above that, some part of, or the entire consumption will be covered through a local, renewable source and the generated heat will be recovered on site. Presumably, the installation of future’s data centres will be much faster and more flexible than in case of today’s design.
PERS: What technologies should be involved in order to make today’s data centres greener?
B.T.: The applied technologies should be chosen in each case depending on the client/project/location, though I think that today both on the field of cooling and electricity supply there are available technologies by which, with careful planning, an already existing engine room can be made greener, or what is even more important, its operating costs can be reduced. Among the technologies with a presently increasing penetration I would mention evaporation and immersion cooling; in the future 400V DC electricity supply -though there are still too many question marks regarding this-, and of course local renewable power source potential.
PERS: If it is possible to rank, which solution disposes of the highest rate of return DCIM- (Data Center Infrastructure Management), free cooling, low- energy servers, modular data centres, data centre consolidation and virtualisation, cloud computing or renewable energy sources?
B.T.: The most profitable solution is if unused servers are turned off and scrapped by the client. Following this, the primary issue is always IT side optimisation which should be followed by engine room consolidation and renovation. The basis for all the latter have to (should) be DCIM, regarding which there still are a lot of misunderstandings and erroneous use of terms.
PERS: What kind of solutions can Persecutor Ltd. offer for the purpose of transforming the security, availability and energy efficiency of a data centre into cutting edge, while optimising and utilising its already existing infrastructure?
B.T.: We examine a certain data centre’s or engine room’s parameters, applied technologies and possibilities through a complete, that is to say horizontal approach, while following the target functions specified by the client. We offer this service in different constructions, according to the Client’s needs. That is to say, either as main contractor, in order to reach global objectives we take all the burdens off our Client’s shoulder, or we perform the phases of the audit and then the
implementation by stages. There is also a possibility for our company to "switch" to the side of the Client and in exchange for an implementation fee, pursue the interests of the Client during the competitive tendering of suppliers, and furthermore guarantee the achievement of the expected and set objectives.
PERS: What are your experiences about Hungarian companies; how open are they and how much do they strive to make their data centres greener?
B.T.: Above conversation, not many people are interested in becoming greener in our country today, due to the now relatively cheap energy and the low aid intensities of renewable energy sources. However there is a noticeable pressure on behalf of international companies towards environment oriented thinking. In my opinion, compared to the current situation, environmentally conscious operation as a corporate value will become a truly decisive factor in the next decade, and this eventually will have to be enforced by the consumers. For our part, we see this as an opportunity for which we prepared ourselves in an early stage.
PERS: How does Persecutor Ltd. support its clients in the decision whether it is worthy or not to integrate solutions that are much more secure and energy efficient than the already existing ones?
B.T.: Naturally we can support the achievement of such sub-objectives with a service or with the above described full implementation. However I think that the value added by Persecutor Ltd. is not this, but the creation of a development concept, which is elaborated according to the objectives sometimes not even thought through by the client itself in the beginning. The first step of this is precisely the clarification of what constitutes a noticeable yield in the eyes of the client and how is that achievable? For some clients, availability is an overarching objective, since their business activity and its character requires it; in other cases the clients are able to differentiate and thus formulate a sophisticated SLA (Service Level Agreement) and in such cases energetics can receive.