HP offers greener approach to IT (3-Sep-07)
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Full article: HP offers greener approach to IT (3-Sep-07)
The cost of managing IT infrastructures is growing four times faster than IT hardware spending, according to HP.
Energy is now a top concern for companies running data centres. If this problem is not addressed, companies will face power shortages in the future. For this reason, HP is offering its customers more efficient ways to manage their data centres and energy consumption.
"63% of the energy that comes into a data centre is used for cooling," says HP. "Some servers and racks do not need to be cooled as much as others, but they are still allocated the same cooling resources. This is a waste of energy."
HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling' strategy is designed to automatically monitor and control cooling resources in a data centre. With DSC, a series of sensors is placed on each server rack to measure the temperature. These sensors report to the control module, which can prompt the air-conditioners to reduce or increase cooling, as and when needed. DSC can save 15% to 40% of costs spent in cooling, HP claims.
HP's Adaptive Infrastructure strategy promotes low-cost, flexible and automated IT environments that can scale according to business needs.
HP also offers the Insight Power Manager, an integrated energy monitoring and management application that enables centralised control of power consumption in servers. "It can produce real-time reports on the power usage of all your servers in a data centre, so that you are aware of exactly how much power each server is consuming," says HP.
Thin provisioning enables a company to allocate storage space to servers as and when it is needed. A company need not be wasting energy to power up storage that it does not yet require.
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Information technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co is driving its own environmentally-friendly initiatives for a "greener" future, said Jeff Carlat, director of software marketing for HP industry standard servers.
He said the cost to manage IT infrastructures is growing four times faster than IT hardware spending, especially when it comes to energy consumption.
"By next year, the cost used to power up a server is going to be as much as the server itself," said Carlat.
"Energy is now the top concern for companies running datacentres — they are increasingly facing difficulties in getting enough power to their datacentres, so that they can continue providing uninterrupted service to their customers."
"At the same time we have to worry about the environmental impact caused by energy-hungry datacentres.
There is a growing need to lower the carbon footprint and controll emissions," he added.
Datacentres across the United States consumed 61 billion kilowatt hours in 2006, which is 15% of the total energy consumption in the country, said Carlat.
He said, if the problem goes unchecked, companies would face power shortage issues sooner or later.
"90% of companies are going to have power failures that will impact their business.
If you're a bank it may cost you to lose US$90,000 (RM315,000) per hour. A brokerage house might lose up to US$6.5mil (RM22.8mil) an hour," he said.
HP is offering its customers more efficient ways to manage their datacentres and energy consumption.
Controlling cooling
"63% of the energy that comes into a datacentre is used for cooling," said Carlat, adding that many companies over-provision when it comes to this.
"Some servers and racks do not need to be cooled as much as others, but they are still allocated the same cooling resources.
This is a waste of energy," he said.
He said HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC) strategy is designed to automatically monitor and control cooling resources in a datacentre.
"With DSC, a series of sensors is placed on each server rack to measure the temperature.
These sensors report to the control module, which can prompt the air-conditioners to reduce or increase cooling, as and when needed," said Carlat.
DSC can save 15% to 40% of costs spent in cooling, he claimed.
Also, HP can provide companies with a thermal assessment of their datacentres.
"We can analyse hotspots around the servers and the airflow underneath the flooring, and provide recommendations on how to optimally prepare the site," Carlat said.
"In a typical datacentre, you see servers aligned from right to left in straight rows, but this shouldn't be the way," said Raymond Yap, Hewlett-Packard (M) Sdn Bhd country business manager for enterprise storage and servers.
According to him, the placement of hardware in a room affects its cooling.
"You can reduce up to 45% of cooling costs in a datacentre if the site is strategically planned," said Yap.
"All these savings can then be used to drive a company's business forward, rather than being wasted on cooling," said Carlat.
Adapting to needs
These approaches, Carlat said, is part of the HP Adaptive Infrastructure strategy, which promotes low-cost, flexible and automated IT environments that can scale according to business needs.
This includes a combination of HP's servers and storage products, power and cooling solutions, as well as software and services.
"HP shares the same pain points that its customers have.
We have high IT maintenance costs, we need to spend on upgrades and migration and drive our own innovation at the same time," said Carlat.
He said, using its own solutions, HP managed to consolidate 86 of its datacentres to a mere six over the duration of three years.
"Not only does it provide tangible savings for us and our customers, but at the end of the day, it also means the environment benefits," he said.
Better airflow
HP's blade systems are also designed for optimal airflow, energy consumption and cooling, said Carlat.
"We have active cool fans, which are modelled after remote-controlled airplanes, residing inside the blade enclosure," he said.
"These fans provide four times more airflow and are four times more silent than any other fan — and the best part is it requires only one-third of the typical power used in such fans," he explained.
HP is also providing the Insight Power Manager, an integrated energy monitoring and management application that enables centralised control of power consumption in servers.
"It can produce real-time reports on the power usage of all your servers in a datacentre, so that you are aware of exactly how much power each server is consuming," said Carlat.
"Our energy-optimised ProLiant servers, which are specially configured with a mix of hardware and software for the purpose, use 18% less power than servers which are not optimised."
Thin provisioning
Carlat said, thin provisioning is another technique that HP uses in its efforts to lower power consumption.
Thin provisioning enables a company to allocate storage space to servers as and when it is needed.
"For example, a company may decide to provision two terabytes of storage as part of its three- to five-year IT plan, but may not yet require the use of two terabytes worth of storage," said Yap.
"But the company would still need to provision for two terabytes of storage to ease configuration and planning purposes," he said.
With thin provisioning, he said, the company can still plan for two terabytes, while it purchases only what it presently needs.
"This way, the company would not be wasting energy to power up storage that it does not yet require.
"Also, by putting off buying additional capacity until later, the company can save money as storage costs are known to decrease over time," said Yap.
- Source: The Star Online
