Data centers are often searching for ways to increase the efficiency of their facilities, but often run into challenges while trying to do so. That is why Emerson Network Power (News - Alert), a business of Emerson, an enabling Business-Critical Continuity company, has released the results from a recent industry survey that provides insight into the actions some data center operators have taken.


Conducted by the Data Center Users’ Group (DCUG), a group of influential data center, IT and facility managers formed by Emerson Network Power, the survey was completed in coordination with the U.S. EPA and Lawrence Berkley National Labs.

The study was meant to support the EPA’s recently released “Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency.” More than 150 DCUG member companies and non-member Fortune 500 companies took part in the survey, which covered a variety of data center topics, including power management, precision cooling, energy efficiency, technology implementation and consolidation.

The majority of the survey respondents have made operational improves in an effort to increase energy efficiency. Data centers are arranged in a hot aisle/cold aisle configuration in 77 percent of these cases. This set up increases cooling system efficiency.

Another 65 percent use blanking panels to minimize recirculation of hot air and 56 percent have sealed the floor to prevent cooling losses. The survey has also shown that the growing popularity of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to identify hotspots and optimize airflow within the facility, with 25 percent of respondents having already conducted a CFD analysis of their facilities.
 

 “We have been promoting the value of best practices to optimize the efficiency of existing systems for the last several years, so it is gratifying to see these tactics being widely adopted in the market,” said Bob Bauer, Emerson group vice president and Liebert Worldwide president, in a Friday statement.

“They are among the first – and easiest – steps in optimizing data center efficiency. Now, we as an industry have to address the challenges of taking efficiency initiatives even further.”  

The study also found that the challenges that data center professionals face as they try to reduce energy use include lack of management priority (40 percent), not clearly understanding the cost/benefit relationship (36 percent), not wanting to risk reliability (35 percent) and lack of communication between IT and facilities (33 percent).
 

 Additional results include the following:

 

The results of this study indicate that data center capacity and efficiency is a real concern, but maybe not for the right people. For those that are responsible for overseeing the performance of the data center, if they are not given the necessary tools to ensure they have the capacity and the safeguards in place, the ultimate responsibility is still on them in the event of a loss of data.

 

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