Datacentres need work overall to achieve savings

A holistic view of server room systems is needed for datacentre optimisation, says Eben Owen

Owen: Everything must work better together

Global warming is changing the way businesses operate, as they focus on reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. And IT hardware can account for half of a datacentre’s overall power consumption.

Concepts, systems and products are appearing to help businesses achieve local and national carbon emission reduction targets. And we are taking a holistic view of overall energy consumption within the datacentre.

A datacentre is a dynamic environment and demands integrated solutions capable of maximising the functionality of specialist physical resources, achieving overall energy efficiency, and supporting the infrastructure comprehensively.

This is underpinned by two concepts: power utilisation efficiency and IT asset management.

Power utilisation efficiency can be achieved by getting specalists to do a ‘walk-through’ of the datacentre and figure out how best to optimise the use of its hardware, systems and processes.

The aim is to identify the most energy-efficient ways to achieve data room objectives, covering infrastructure (design, monitoring and management), power (quality, protection and distribution) and air (temperature, humidity and movement).

IT asset management covers the kit lifecycle across an entire enterprise, from the desktop to the datacentre. This gives a centralised view of all layers in the network architecture, enabling integrated and effective management.

Taking a holistic view of datacentre optimisation in this way opens market opportunities far beyond traditional business.

Partners can become nothing less than carbon footprint consultants and environmental advisers, assisting customers to meet evolving energy saving standards.

Eben Owen is channel manager at Emerson Network Power