Steps before going for Green Data Center
Green is the new word for the generation of 21st century and it is the only word which can save the world from a large catastrophe. Every business is adding something green to their working process, so that CO2 level of atmosphere can be reduced and global warming can be controlled. Now the business associated with Data Centers, i.e. building and managing data center is also adapting to the same procedure. However applying green to the business in data center is a bit tougher and you have to follow few points. Before applying the green fundaments to your business, go through the below given points, so that it won’t cause any problems:
Weigh up your Current Infrastructure - everything needs to be analyzed including electricity consumption, energy bills, devices used in data centers like switches, routers, air conditioning systems, computers and cooling fans. Analyzing these parts of your data center will help you in generate a baseline of the costs you will have to face and where you will have to invest before implementing the idea of Green Data Center.
Evaluate Future needs - find out what is required for to build a Green Data Center or changing the traditional data center to a green data center. Find out what will be the requirements in your data centers possible growth so that your data center can be compatible with not just present but also with future.
Placements of Racks - planning the layout plan is one of the most important part of a data center. The arrangement of racks in the format of hot and cold aisle will help in accepting the green grid for the data center. As this arrangement of hot and cold aisle helps in the flow of air, it indirectly lead to control of the temperature of the server rooms and thus less energy is consumed making your data center more greener and environmentally friendly.
Combine The Servers - You can make your servers running on one single piece of hardware, instead of running it on, multiple hardware boxes. This will effect you in two ways, first of all concentrating your servers on one single hardware will save you a lot of energy and it will also help you in reducing power consumption needed for cooling of the various boxes.
Reduce the Unwanted - fins out every single area where you can reduce currently used equipments or hardware. For an instance if you have two 26 port switches an they are using only 18 of them, merge them and close down one of the switch. This will not look happening for small companies, but for larger companies using huge data centers it can save a lot of money and energy.
Use of Rated Appliance - when choosing air conditioning systems and cooling systems, always choose Star Rated appliances. Those appliances which carry energy star save almost 25% to 45 % of energy. These energy star rated appliances cost a bit more than the usual appliances, but investing in these machines will help you in the end. Overall running cost and power consumption is much lesser than the non rated appliances. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue ratings for the equipments used in the data centers till 2010.
Important Steps for Data Center Design
Constructing a Data Center takes a lots of research and resources. There are many points to be cared of and instead simply planning some rough design, you need experts for the job to be done. Planning a Data Center is not just placing some servers and racks. Carefully follow the below given points and make sure your data center is built on the basses of some solid research work.
- Make it Simple - best design for a data center is simple and sober. It sounds funny but it’s a fact. Simple designs have a lot of advantages over a complex design like it will be easier to support, use and administrator. If somehow a problem occurs, it can be fixed much faster.
- Plan in Advance - if you are not planning in advance it can cost you later. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Instead of thinking that everything will workout, think about the problems that can occur. Planning will help you to be on the right track.
- Act an administrator - if you will use standardized sections will make your work easier. Also in the future if there is a need for some upgrade or adding more server, you will know how and where everything will work perfectly.
- Allow Flexibility - expansion is directly proportional to flexibility. Flexibility will allow space for your data center whenever technology changes or some upgrade takes place. Also if your data center will have room for change, it will help you to adapt in the changing environment of the technology.
- Care for Weight - server are heavy and be prepared for that. Assuming that your floor can support the weight of the server can result in heavy loss. Make sure floor is of the correct type and is strong enough to support the servers.
- Use Aluminum tile for Raised floor - aluminum can handle the weight of the servers and racks more properly than plastic or ceramic tiles. Using some other material you are risking server and all the other equipments. Aluminum decreases the chances of buckling your floor under its own weight.
- Use of RLUs - RLU (rack location unit) can define your capacity more properly than squarer feet.
- Labeling - most of the people overlook this step when they built Data Center. Labeling will help you to remember things more easily. Specially cables need to be labeled, because if you don’t do that even to find out a single cable can make you pulling out the whole floor. It will take some extra time but will help in the end.