Page 3 - gm7119_datacenters_tb1.pdf

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Challenge and commitment
Data centers are becoming larger and more vital to
everyday life with each smart phone, internet-connected
computer or Wi-Fi® device sold. The recent emergence
of cloud computing is spurring a boom in real-world
construction. Data center operators need to manage a
complex infrastructure of power and cooling equipment
while providing 24x7 availability of data for commerce,
financial transactions, enterprise resources or even
streaming video for a night’s entertainment. All of this has
made the data center industry one of the fastest growing
consumers of electrical power, using up to 2% of the
U.S. electrical supply and resulting in a global carbon-
equivalent footprint greater than the entire airline industry.
As a result, greater emphasis has been placed on using
all of this power efficiently. One power metric, as defined
by The Green Grid®, is Power Usage Effectiveness, or
PUE, which is a value to compare total power used
divided by the amount of power used for critical loads.
The lower the PUE value, the more efficiently power
is being used. Some state-of-the-art data centers are
reporting PUE levels of 1.2, where only a few years ago,
an average PUE value might have been at 2.0 or higher.
A PUE value of 2.0 means that for every watt used for
critical load, another watt is being used for support
systems such as HVAC equipment.
With downtime costs reported as approaching $350,000
per hour, the need for continuous, quality power is
paramount. Given this, how can an owner improve the
efficiency of an existing data center? There are several
ways to do this. The IT portion of the data center is
typically refreshed, or upgraded, every three to five years,
but power systems are part of capital equipment and are
on a longer refresh cycle, which makes efficiency gains
on the power side more difficult to come by. Some gains
can be achieved by converting from perimeter cooling
to segregating hot air from cold air (hot aisle/cold aisle
containment) with simple mechanical barriers. Some
companies make ducting to focus the cold air into the
IT rack itself. Immediately, and perhaps easiest of all,
you can follow the ASHRAE recommendations and
increase the overall temperature in the white space,
requiring less cooling regardless of scheme.
For the designer, electrical contractor or owner of a
new data center, the issues can be compounded by
the urgency of the construction process. A day that the
project is delayed is a day of irrecoverable revenue loss.
A data center has 15–30 times the electrical density of a
commercial building, and the costs of the electrical system
may approach 70% of overall project costs. Coupled with
the complexity of a dual-source, concurrently redundant
power system, this requires project management skills
of the highest caliber.
Thomas & Betts understands the drive for efficiency at
the data center and can provide products that enable
you to build or improve your critical electrical systems
while maintaining safety and power quality in a 24x7
environment. Today’s data center has evolved into a
complex data factory, and it needs a quality, reliable
and easily maintained electrical system.
Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance.
The Green Grid is a registered trademark of The Green Grid Association.
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