Balancing Power Consumption and Equipment Utilization

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I know I’ve talked about it before (some might say on my soapbox)—the importance of tracking power in relation to utilization. Seriously, you can’t have an energy management strategy without closely monitoring the utilization of your machines and how it translates into power consumption. 

 Just yesterday, I met with a facilities manager at a data center, and his situation really clarifies my point. First of all, I should point out that the guy was super-anal. (As opposed to my desk where it looks like a tornado hit, he has everything cataloged and organized to the 9^th degree.) In the past year, he built a neatly organized row of equipment that was nearly symmetrical.  The first six racks in the row belonged to one group; the next six racks were an aggregation of four different business units. 

The manager explained that each time a new piece of equipment arrived, he would work out on his white board where to put it, taking into consideration both the equipment that was already running as well as the “plan.” (He did air quotes around “plan,” so I’m guessing that the plan was not his own and that he wasn’t nearly as impressed with his peers planning as he was with his own.) Bottom line, he was careful about where he installed new equipment, and he maintained this nearly symmetrical, 12-rack row all the way down the line. 

What plagued him within the last six months was power distribution and cooling.  The racks on the right-hand side of the row averaged 67% more power consumption per week, and the unbalanced heat was driving him batty. 

Of course, when I started talking about the fact that computer utilization can impact power consumption by as much as 200 percent, his eyes widened. It was a light-bulb moment. He said he knew that power was variable, but didn’t realize that it could be that variable. 

We are going to do a proof of concept for him—I’m guessing on his troubled row. I’ll let you know how it goes….