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November 2011 IT in Manufacturing

How is the data centre affected?

Cloud computing brings a new dynamic to CIO decision making when it comes to technology infrastructure. Applications must be available at all times, meaning that a company’s data centre must be exceptionally reliable and supported by adequate power and cooling measures.

However, Eben Owen, E&S sales manager at APC by Schneider Electric, warns that companies should not oversize their data centres unnecessarily, even with the additional pressures brought on by cloud computing.

“Oversizing has become the single largest avoidable cost associated with the data centre and network room infrastructure,” he explains. “In fact, most data centres use less than 50% of their physical and power infrastructure. This unused capacity represents not only an avoidable capital cost, but preventable operating and maintenance expenses as well.”

This wastage can be costly with expenses split into capital and operating costs. Capital costs include the costs of the excess power and cooling equipment, as well as capitalised design and installation costs, including wiring and ductwork.

On the side of operating costs are maintenance contracts, consumables and electricity.

Since oversizing gives rise to underutilised equipment that must be maintained, a large fraction of the maintenance cost is also wasted.

“Excess electricity costs are significant when data centres are oversized. The idling loss of a data centre is approximately 5% of the power rating. When the cooling costs are factored in, this figure doubles to 10%. Hence, for an oversized 100 kW data centre, the wasted electricity over a 10-year span is roughly 600 000 kWh,” says Owen.

“Instead of building a data centre in advance, businesses should rather implement a solution that can track the actual load requirement and constantly adapt to changing needs. Architecture like APC’s InfraStruXure is ideal as it provides pre-engineered modular building blocks that can be grown or reduced as needed and also eliminates special site preparations, such as raised floors, wiring, drilling and cutting.

“When it comes to moving into the cloud, it is critical to remember that this type of technology requires the same infrastructure as a traditional data centre setup,” says Owen. “This means that although availability is becoming increasingly important, it should not deter organisations from building a data centre that is fit for purpose rather than based on hypothetical future needs.”

For more information contact Pierre Lintzer, APC by Schneider Electric, +27 (0)11 557 6600, pierre.lintzer@apcc.com, www.apc.com

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