Capping Data Center Energy Use

As part of its Green Business Technology initiative, Hewlett-Packard on Monday introduced a new technology called Dynamic Power Capping that lets data center managers set a limit on how much power individual servers are allowed to use.According to Peter Gross, chief executive officer of HP subsidiary EYP Mission Critical Facilities, "capping" eliminates the need for over-provisioning, a common practice in data centers where IT managers set aside more power and cooling capacity than is needed to give them more disaster recovery options. "With these new solutions from HP, customers are able to drive down data center costs by reducing energy consumption and, at the same time, minimize environmental impact," Gross said. Citing data from the Uptime Institute, HP estimates that by using Dynamic Power Capping, a company can increase the number of servers threefold in a 1-megawatt data center, using the same power allocation and infrastructure. This translates into recovery of up to $16 million in capital expenditures, reduction in ongoing energy consumption on the order of 25%, and cost savings of nearly $300,000 a year.

Dynamic Power Capping is one part of the HP Thermal Logic portfolio of products and services that combines precise measurement and control of data center power and cooling. Other parts of the portfolio include Energy Efficiency Analysis, HP's proprietary ROI modeling tool, which can do detailed cost-benefit assessments of data center energy-efficiency improvements, and Energy Efficiency Design, which can be used to plan new buildings or retro-commission existing facilities for compliance with worldwide environmentally accredited standards.

The latest products and services in HP's Green Business Technology initiative are designed to make the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company competitive with similar initiatives from IBM, Google, and Microsoft, who all are competing to design more efficient data centers. "With data centers using a staggering amount of energy, CIOs today are giving high priority to energy efficiency as a factor in new technology purchases," said Michelle Bailey, IDC research VP. "The new offerings to HP Thermal Logic provide customers with ways to reduce total energy use, reclaim trapped capacity and extend the life of the data centers while maintaining exceptional performance levels."