How to Make Better Data Center Energy Management Decisions

Data centers are among the largest consumers of energy worldwide, accounting for up to  3% of global electricity consumption, a figure expected to rise with increasing demand for computing power and services.

Energy consumption is a main concern in the data center industry as managers struggle to find ways to improve overall efficiency and environmental sustainability amidst the green wave of new reporting and operating regulations.

However, leveraging modern solutions can help data center operators achieve these goals by using fewer resources without introducing risk.

Common Data Center Energy Management Challenges

Managing the energy consumption levels of a data center is no easy task. There are many challenges that data center managers must face when trying to improve energy efficiency:

• High energy consumption. Data centers consume roughly 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy annually, the equivalent of some medium-sized countries. Data center professionals must figure out ways to source enough power while also optimizing performance and energy usage.
• Cooling efficiency. Since data centers expend massive amounts of energy, infrastructure is at risk of overheating and data center managers need to be able to cool it down efficiently without wasting energy.
• Power density. Increasing rack power densities can result in localized hot spots, making it harder to maintain a consistent cooling across the facility.
• Lack of data. Without the right tools, some data center professionals are left in the dark when it comes to real-time information about their facility. Data center managers need to know accurate information about their environment at all times so they can make the most informed decisions.
• Scalability. A big obstacle some data center managers face is increasing scalability with limited capacity while maintaining efficiency. It’s important to prioritize energy efficiency and performance before deploying loads of infrastructure which can be done with a what-if analysis from a DCIM solution.
• Regulatory compliance. Meeting reporting requirements and sustainability measures are a main priority for data centers amidst new regulations like the EU Green Deal. It can be complex trying to keep track of everything that must be reported but DCIM software enables managers to easily locate any data within a single portal.
• Operational costs. Achieving a highly efficient data center may be an expensive task, and data center managers must balance the costs of implementing energy saving measures against the potential long-term savings and benefits.
• Legacy tools. Continuing to operate data centers with Excel, Visio, or homegrown tools may cause operators to struggle with deploying modern energy efficiency strategies to increase sustainability and lower their energy consumption footprint.

Key Data That Drives Better Energy Management

Effective energy management in data centers relies on gathering and analyzing critical data, which provides valuable insights into various aspects of energy usage and efficiency that can lead to more informed decisions. Here are some of the metrics that data center managers should measure and monitor:

Power Usage Data

• Total power consumption. Total power consumption in a data center refers to the real-time and historical data on the overall electricity used by the facility. Monitoring this data helps identify usage patterns and peak times, enabling data center managers to optimize energy use, reduce waste, and implement energy-saving measures effectively.
• Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). A data center’s PUE is a metric that refers to the ratio of total building energy usage to the energy consumed by IT equipment in a data center. Tracking PUE helps data center managers identify inefficiencies in non-IT energy use, such as cooling and power distribution, allowing them to implement strategies to improve overall energy efficiency.
• Energy consumption by component. Energy consumption by component relates to the detailed data on the power usage of individual components like servers, cooling systems, PDUs, and lighting. This specific information allows data center managers to pinpoint high-energy-use areas, enabling targeted efficiency improvements and better all-around energy management.

Cooling Data

• Cooling system power usage. In your data center it is important to know how much energy is being consumed by chillers, air conditioners, and other cooling equipment. Monitoring this data helps managers assess the efficiency of their cooling systems and implement improvements to reduce energy consumption and operational costs.
• Temperature and humidity levels. With environmental sensors, data center professionals can constantly monitor the temperature and humidity levels in the facility. It is critical to maintain the optimal temperature and humidity level to ensure efficient operations of IT equipment, lower energy usage for cooling, and prevent overheating.
• Airflow management data. Airflow data enables managers to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies like hot/cold aisle containment, optimizing cooling energy use, reducing overall consumption, and extending the lifespan of costly IT infrastructure.

IT Equipment Utilization

• Server utilization rates. The server utilization rates in a data center include how much CPU, memory, and storage resources are being used by each server. Tracking these rates helps identify underutilized servers, which will enable better resource allocation, consolidation, and energy efficiency.
• Virtualization metrics. Having access to virtualization metrics within your facility provides insights to the efficiency and performance of virtualized environments, including resource utilization and load distribution. By elevating virtualization, operators can increase hardware efficiency, decrease physical server needs, and achieve significant energy and cost savings.
• Idle and low-load data. The idle and low-load data in a data center records the frequency and duration of servers running at minimal or no capacity. Analyzing this data helps identify opportunities to power down or consolidate underutilized servers, ultimately lowering energy consumption.

Power Distribution Data

• Rack PDU load and capacity. Monitoring rack PDU load and capacity helps identify underutilized or overburdened equipment, allowing managers to balance power distribution more efficiently, prevent overloads, and reduce unnecessary energy consumption.
• UPS load and capacity. By tracking UPS load and capacity, data center managers can ensure optimal usage and reliability, avoiding inefficiencies and potential failures while maximizing battery life and reducing energy waste.
• Branch circuit load and capacity. Monitoring branch circuit load and capacity enables proactive management of electrical infrastructure, helping to avoid overloading circuits, minimize downtime, and optimize power distribution for improved energy efficiency.

Operational Data

• Maintenance records. Data center managers should document all history of maintenance activities performed on energy-consuming equipment. Keeping detailed records helps schedule proactive maintenance and reduce unexpected failures.
• Incident reports. Incident reports crucial for energy management because they record events like power outages, equipment failures, and any other kind of disruption that might affect energy consumption. With these reports, managers can identify recurring issues, improve redundancy, and deploy strategies to enhance energy efficiency and prevent future incidents.

Environmental Impact Data

• Carbon footprint metrics. Many data center managers prioritize minimizing their carbon footprint by measuring the amount of carbon emitted from the total amount of electricity used by the facility to gauge energy efficiency levels. Metrics like Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) will measure data center sustainability and can help managers see where there’s room for improvement.
• Sustainability metrics. Measuring sustainability metrics such as Delta-T Per Cabinet, Green Energy Coefficient, Power Usage Effectiveness, and Water Usage Effectiveness can provide managers with a more holistic understanding of their environment’s performance.

Cost Data

• Energy cost. The cost of energy consumption is not cheap and it’s important to understand all the costs of electricity, especially during peak demand charges and time-of-use pricing. Evaluating all energy costs will show where expenses can be saved and in-turn, cut back on energy consumption.
• Return on Investment (ROI). Data center managers should calculate ROI to assess the financial impact of energy efficiency measures and investments by comparing the cost of improvements to the savings accomplished. By analyzing ROI, it becomes easier to ensure that investments deliver physical financial and operational benefits.

Benchmarking Data

• Industry standards and comparisons. It can be challenging trying to figure out where to start improving energy efficiency, but data center managers can look to industry benchmarks and standards for a helping guide. This comparison helps identify performance gaps, set improvement goals, and adopt effective strategies to enhance energy management.
• Historical data. Reflecting on past energy usage and performance trends can show managers how to strategize energy usage in the future. Reviewing a data center’s historical energy data will help record progress over time, identify patterns or outliers and refine energy utilization.

Strategies for Better Energy Management

Executing effective strategies is essential for optimizing energy management in data centers, enabling data center managers to reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency, and achieve sustainability goals. Here are some best practices the leading data center managers use:

• Instrument the data center with meters and sensors. Data center managers can elevate their data centers by installing the most energy efficient IT equipment and decommissioning older models. Outdated infrastructure might consume more energy for the same performance level, preventing top efficiency. Managers can also utilize outlet-metered intelligent rack PDUs to monitor power consumption at each outlet, providing device-level data that enables more granular energy management. To get the most accurate view at your data center’s environment, temperature and humidity sensors can be deployed.
• Reduce cooling loads and enhance airflow management. Enhancing airflow management is one of the best ways to improve data center energy efficiency. Leading professionals use the hot aisle/cold aisle configuration where cabinets are placed so that the front of one does not face the back of another. Continuing the pattern of front-to-front and back-to-back cabinets creates alternate rows of cold air supply, and hot air return which maximizes cost-efficient cooling. Bypass airflow, the air that returns to a cooling unit without removing heat, can also decrease energy efficiency so managers need to ensure that they implement measures such as blanking panels to help reduce server inlet temperatures and increase Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) return air temperature.  To optimize cooling efficiency, data centers must keep a temperature within the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommended range with a maximum temperature of 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Environmental sensors can be placed on racks and monitored with DCIM software to collect and trend the temperature data.

• Consider advanced cooling systems. The data center liquid cooling market is expected to grow by over 24% annually over the next five years and can dramatically help cool high density equipment. Liquid cooling is the process of using a liquid coolant to absorb and transfer heat from electronic components, like processors, within servers. This cooling method provides a direct and more efficient means of removing thermal energy. There are multiple types of liquid cooling that data center professionals are using including direct-to-chip cooling, immersion cooling, and rear-door liquid cooling. Some experts even use single-phase immersion cooling and two-phase immersion cooling  to cool high-density racks.
• Virtualize and consolidate servers. Consolidating workloads onto virtualized servers can cut energy costs by up to 50%, improve resource utilization, and reduce hardware footprint. Integrating VMware with DCIM software allows you to map VMs to physical hosts and move them to the most efficient servers for maximum gains.
• Deploy DCIM. Luckily data center managers don’t have to look too far for a solution. Data Center Infrastructure Management Software (DCIM) software is able to help data center professionals make the most informed data center management decisions each day. DCIM shows data center managers how to avoid overcooling by providing insight into what equipment is being cooled outside of industry or manufacturer guidelines. Ghost servers waste energy  but with a DCIM solution, you can easily locate potential ghost servers and shut them down. This will free up space, power, and cooling capacity that can be allocated to other sectors of the data center to improve performance. Bill back reports can also be created so that organizations can charge their customers for the amount of energy consumed, making the customer more aware, and your data center more energy efficient.

Bringing It All Together

Improving energy management in data centers requires facing challenges from high energy consumption and cooling efficiency to regulatory compliance and operation costs. By leveraging key data such as power usage, cooling system performance, and IT equipment utilization, managers can make the most informed decisions to optimize energy use.

Implementing strategies such as advanced cooling systems, virtualization, and DCIM software further enhances energy efficiency and sustainability. Prioritizing these best practices can help data centers achieve significant cost savings and reduce their environmental impact, creating a more sustainable future.

Want to See how Sunbird’s leading DCIM software can help you make the best energy decisions in your data center? Get your free test drive now!