Data centre power, cooling, energy supply and cost problems are likely to worsen during the next few years, according to analysts.
As organisations emerge from the recessionary period, organisations are growing their technology infrastructure and are looking at innovative ways to manage and control energy costs.
KyotoCooling, in partnership with Wagner and Hitec Power Protection, plans to kick off its data centre technologies seminar in the Netherlands at the end of the month.
The event will reveal the future of data centres, and technologies that reduce 80% of cooling energy expenses, according to the company. The seminar will also see delegates visit three live data centres in the Netherlands, equipped with newer cooling technologies.
Reinier Lehmann, KyotoCooling SA's business development agent, explains that KyotoCooling plans to expand its presence in Africa, while prioritising SA in order to capture market share.
He explains that lowering escalating energy costs in South African data centres is a growing problem, following rising data storage demands and the increase in electricity tariffs.
According to Lehmann, Eskom has indicated that KyotoCooling will be added to its demand side programme to save electricity and encourage energy-efficient use of technology. Although the deal has not been finalised, Eskom is in discussions with KyotoCooling.
“One of the biggest challenges is the fact that the average data centre uses the same power as 26 000 households,” says Lehmann. “Data centres all over the world use 3% of the world's electricity.”
According to global research firm Gartner, energy-related costs account for approximately 12% of overall data centre expenditure and are the fastest-rising cost in the data centre.
"With upwards of 5% growth for server shipments predicted per year over the next two years, organisations need to forcefully control their energy consumption and costs," notes Rakesh Kumar, research VP at Gartner.
"To do this, data centre operators need to measure energy-related data across the whole site, including the building, the facility's components and the IT equipment portfolio."
Kumar claims continuous power utilisation efficiency (PUE) readings will become the norm for most large data centres. By 2015, he reckons 80% of new large data centres will report continuous PUE readings across the data centre.
Kumar adds: "Energy management across IT hardware, racks and electrical facilities should be tackled immediately, while measurements across data centre building facilities and buildings will be necessary mainly for hosting providers that want to charge customers specifically for energy usage.”
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