Space management: it's all down to the enclosure

Many data centre professionals are fast recognising the negative impact that crowded enclosures have on efficiency, uptime, and on the overall look and feel of their data centres.

The biggest concern is the impact on uptime, which is most often influenced by human error, says Paolo Miglietta, vice-president of APC by Schneider Electric South Africa, a leader in critical power and cooling services.

“A systems operator or employee who opens the door to a crowded enclosure can be easily confused by the mess of cables - sometimes the wrong plug is pulled or jostled when attempting to move a piece of equipment,” he says.

“Data centre efficiency is driven by energy consumption, which is determined by the amount of power coming into the enclosure, and by the amount of cooling required to remove the heat generated by the equipment within the enclosure.

“So, it is fair to say the structure and organisation of the enclosure plays a significant role in determining whether the heat removal process is efficient or not.”

Furthermore, he adds, the overall condition of the enclosure reflects on the cleanliness and professionalism of the entire data centre with customers, investors, executives and outside visitors all walking away with a negative impression when enclosure cabling resembles clogged knots of spaghetti.

Miglietta says new trends such as virtualisation, high density blade servers and high efficiency add to the need for a comprehensive strategy for managing equipment and cabling inside of the enclosures.

“Fortunately, new enclosure designs and sizes provide the flexibility and space to manage the new, more demanding data centre environment,” he says. “There are, however, five critical steps that help facilitate the goals of improved uptime, efficiency, and physical appearance through improved internal enclosure organisation. These are to plan for high density, calculate enclosure power requirements, select the proper enclosure size, implement smart cable management, and lastly, organise for efficient cooling.”

The exercise of fitting more equipment, power and cooling into data centre enclosures can be greatly simplified by following these five basis steps, says Miglietta.

Planning and organising equipment and cable distribution within the enclosure can pay significant dividends in both increased efficiency (lower electrical bills), the ability to safely accommodate higher density (high uptime and higher productivity per square foot), and for the overall improved look and feel of the data centre.

“Organising components and cables within high density enclosures need not be a stressful, time-consuming chore,” he says. “In fact, thanks to the flexibility of new enclosure designs, a standard for organising enclosure space, including power and data cables can be easily implemented.

“Involving the physical infrastructure and/or enclosure manufacturer in the process can be helpful, particularly if power, cooling and cable sizing expertise is brought to the table,” he advises.