Top 5 Tips for Building a Greener Data Centre

**STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION**
1. Reduce Data Centre Hot Spots

Data Centres have grown without sufficient thought to power and cooling requirements. Once a storage rack is placed on the Data Centre floor it is difficult to move without causing disruption to applications.

Consider:

• Configure storage and server racks with cold rows and hot rows otherwise the back row is breathing the exhaust from the adjacent front row. Without virtualisation, Data Centre managers would be stuck with that configuration and probably have to provide more cooling.
• Use virtualisation capabilities to enable Data Centre managers to reconfigure the storage racks without disruption and take advantage of more balanced cooling configurations.

2. Implement Virtualisation Strategies

Most Data Centre floors and storage implementations have been configured without adequate consideration to heat distribution. Once equipment has been put in place it can be difficult to relief Data Centre hot spots without disrupting applications.

Consider:

• Virtualisation can help reduce disruption when repositioning hot spots BUT use of multiple controllers will consume additional power and require more cooling and space for the controllers. It could also create additional hot spot problems.
• Carefully evaluate the amount of data storage that can be managed by a single controller to account for present and future growth requirements.
• Cost-effective virtualisation strategies need to embrace as much storage as possible so that utilisation is optimised, saving power and cooling.
• Virtualisation must be easy to manage through one common user interface, technology and application; easier management saves on human resources.
  

3. Consolidate Storage

Disparate storage is inefficient because assets are typically underutilised, wasting capital investment in storage infrastructure and from an environmental perspective, unnecessary consumption of power, cooling and space resources.

Consider:

• Evaluate future data storage capacity and performance needs to ensure you don't outgrow capacity or hit other system limitations which would impact the capital cost or environmental savings model.
• In addition to lowering the total cost of ownership and improving productivity, properly implemented storage consolidation can reduce management complexity by lowering the number of storage devices, centralising administration and policies, and enhancing security and control.
• Centralised high-performance network attached storage (NAS) systems can be clustered and have sophisticated built-in virtualisation systems which can significantly change user cost dynamics and can help drive down costs of power, cooling and Data Centre floor space.

4. Deploy Services to Help Design the Right Infrastructure

The demand for Data Centre services is growing rapidly and attracting new entrants