Addressing the ‘green’ challenge in data centres

Australian companies baulking at the cost of long-term solutions to build ‘green’ data centres should instead be looking for quick wins that would get them ahead of the curve in the short term.

That’s the view of Ben Graham, director of services at infrastructure specialist Emerson Network Power Australia.

Emerson has opened a new services office in Gladstone, Queensland, and has also hired more staff to meet the growing demand for its direct data centre infrastructure services across the country. Emerson has also developed a vendor-neutral roadmap called Energy Logic to manage and optimise energy efficiency in high-density data centres.

“The totally ‘green’ data centre is a laudable aim, but the reality is that data centre operators that have invested millions of dollars in infrastructure and equipment aren’t going to throw the lot out of the door and start again,” says Graham. “The problem we’re facing today as an industry is the unprecedented demand for more computing power; and that means smaller, more compact and much higher-density designs like blade servers.

“These devices use up more power and consequently push out an exponentially greater amount of heat that needs to be rejected from the data centre. Unless every stage of the process — from the IT equipment to heat rejection — is carefully managed, it can become very inefficient, costly to run and environmentally unfriendly.

“Some customers are coming to us with greenfield sites seeking advice on how to best design their new data centres. Others want advice on more efficient ways to manage the spiralling infrastructure costs in their existing facilities — mainly the result of high-density computing.

“They’ve grown tired of the ‘break-fix’ engineering mentality of the past, where a service team is called in only when a piece of equipment fails or needs replacing. What we’re offering today is a far more proactive approach that includes a power and air auditing service, along with best-practice consulting for IT equipment and increasingly, carbon footprint reduction.”

Emerson recently announced partnering with Queensland-based Digital Sense to build in Brisbane what is claimed to be Australia’s highest density data centres. Emerson was asked to provide all the infrastructure components for these centres — from the IT equipment racks to the specialised cooling equipment to reject the heat they produce.

“These data centres are unique in their size and scope but certainly not unique in the challenges they’re facing,” says Graham. “Our service engineers are asked — and trained — to help customers meet such challenges and to help them re-engineer existing sites.”

Emerson’s Services business arm, employing 99 factory-trained engineers, has grown about 10% per annum for the past few years.

“Never before has there been such demand for raw computing power. It’s taken many organisations by surprise. The real issue is where to put all this power; and once it’s there, how to manage it,” Graham says.