On-demand data centre opens up access for SMEs: CommScope: Page 2 of 2

Rising automation, dropping temperatures

On-demand data centre opens up access for SMEs: CommScope: Page 2 of 2A recent survey conducted by Enlogic revealed that data centre operators in Malaysia and Singapore are running their facilities at far below the recommended temperature range.  
 
The survey of 55 data centre professionals, conducted at Datacentre Dynamics in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, revealed that 82% were running their data centres at temperatures below 25 degrees Celsius.  
 
In fact, a full 15% of respondents were running their facilities at even lower temperatures, below 20 degrees Celsius, Enlogic said in a statement.
 
Asked for his thoughts on the subject, Young said that there is now a general understanding among data centre operators that it is okay to run a facility within a range of temperatures.
 
According to Ashrae, formerly known as the American Society for Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning, the recommended high-end temperature range for class one data centres ranges from 25 to 27 degrees Celsius, with an upper limit of 32 degrees Celsius.
 
“It used to be that you just set the temperature to ‘cold’ and there was a certain fear that if you ran away from that practice that things would break,” said Young.
 
However, such a practice is no longer the best one, he said, adding that server vendors have been stepping up as well with hardware innovations.
 
“For example, if you look at Dell and its PowerEdge servers, they can tolerate temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius and up to 90% of relative humidity. Also, there’s a lot of new work coming out of Ashrae, defining new operating ranges for data centres and extending them.
 
“There’s a lot of information now to ensure operators that if they want to operate within a certain range, that it is perfectly safe and in fact can reduce energy consumption considerably. So when you start doing the math, it becomes become a very attractive way to save costs,” he added.
 
Asked about the data centre industry maturity levels across Asia, Young said that there are world-class facilities in the region, pointing to Hong Kong and Australia in particular.
 
“They have world-class landing points and facilities with excellent skills. Hong Kong is particularly advanced and the industry has created demand for skilled individuals,” he added.
 
On the subject of finding enough talent for such facilities, Young noted it is “not really possible” any longer to run some of these data centres based “on skillsets alone.”
 
“Systems are becoming more difficult and complex, but the advantage of that is that they also become more efficient,” he said.
 
Due to new complexities, the introduction of automation technologies is of particular importance, such as data centre infrastructure management software (DCIM), said Young.
 
“When DCIMs first came along, they were purely used to monitor, but they are now evolving to intelligence tools that operators can use to get a handle on facilities and equipment,” he added.
 
CommScope also offers a DCIM solution, via iTRACS which it acquired in March 2013. Its Converged Physical Infrastructure Management (CPIM) solution, touted as a decision-support solution for physical infrastructure. Its data centre on demand solution is also pre-integrated with CommScope iTRACS DCIM.
 
The company claims it gives the world’s first and only holistic view of the data centre using an interactive, navigable 3D model that lets operators point-and-click through the entire physical ecosystem from IT to facilities, and building management systems.
 
To illustrate, Young said that when operators now try to build a software-defined networking layer, while a “great thing” because it gets rid of some of the complexities they've had to deal with, the fact remains that it is still built on the same cabling and switch systems.
 
“All those failure points still exist, except now there new complexities on top of this existing layer and this runs into the issue of hidden failure points due to lack of visibility. [This] makes it an issue to maintain the same mean time to repair.
 
“The rising deployment of DCIMs in facilities means that operators can better manage this complexity, as they try to keep pace with new technology,” he added.

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