There is increased attention on the energy consumption of data centres and the amount of energy that is consumed in removing the heat generated by the IT equipment within a data centre. Upcoming legislation in the form of the UK governments Carbon Reduction Commitment will only serve to further increase the pressure on IT and facilities management to take a holistic view of their energy consumption.

One way to reduce DC energy consumption is to replace legacy server infrastructure with the latest generation power efficient servers ( more on that topic here & here). Earlier this week Intel CIO Diane Bryant took time out to talk to the press about the significant saving Intel's IT group has made by refreshing their server installed base and deploying servers based on Xeon 5500, this podcastfrom one of our financial analysts takes you thru the financial justification for maintaining a regular server refresh cycle and one of the many press reports on this topic is here

Server refresh is however only a part of the equation as the facilities infrastructure within the data centre also consumes power and there is a lot of debate within the industry as to whether it is possible run data centres at higher temperatures. Part of this discussion is centred around the use of external air for cooling ( free-air cooling ) as opposed to using air-conditioning units ( CRACs ) to force cool the air within the data centre.

There were reports recently that Microsoft have opened a new data centre in Dublin that uses free air cooling and also that Google's data centre in Belgium also utilises free -air cooling. BT have also been an advocate of the use of free-air cooling for some time..

For some time now the Green Grid have been evaluating the use of free-air cooling within data centres and have just made available a tool* that enables European data centre operators to easily assess the amount time they can operate their facilities with the use external air for cooling. The latest recommendations from ASHRAEas to the inlet temperatures for data centre IT equipment also facilitate the use of free-air cooling.

Intel's own IT group has also done work in this area and published a white paperthat discussed the results of running a test data centre in the Arizona desert using free-air cooling and minimal filtration on the incoming air. OK, so UK climate isn't quite as extreme as the Arizona desert ( yet ) but its still an interesting read an provides some good insight as to what the infrastructure within a DC can tolerate on the environmental front

One factor that has to be considered before taking the plunge and running your data centre with free-air cooling and at higher temperatures is that there is the risk that older IT equipment will actually consume more power as the fans within the servers will run faster and the electronics may consume more power. To counter this many OEMs are now starting to offer severs that can be safely used at extended temperatures so its worth discussing this with your equipment suppliers.

If you want more information on how to measure and improve the energy efficiency of your data centre The Green Grid are holding a Technical Forum in London on 20 October where experts from across the industry will discuss the work of the Green Grid, and the tools available to help assess your current infrastructure and plan improvements.

* The Green Grid on-line Free Air Cooling tool