DataCentres 2011 is Europe’s premier enterprise datacentre and cloud content event and with more than 85 expert speakers there were plenty of highlights, these are our top three.
1.The emergence of the two metrics to increase efficiency were proposed by the Green Grid. These metrics are to complement the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measurement that has been used by datacentres in the past. The metrics proposed were;
- Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) metric which addresses the carbon emissions associated with the generation of power for the operation of datacentres and,
- Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) metric enables datacentre operators to quickly address the water sustainability aspect of their datacentres.
These show that the datacentre industry is really starting to pay attention to efficiency as the initial white papers are reviewed and commented on. To download the white papers or get more information on the various metrics, see http://www.thegreengrid.org
2.The session on cooling architectures presented by Dr Robert Tozer who is the Managing Director for Operational Intelligence Ltd was particularly interesting.
The emphasis this year has been on the ability to use free cooling when and where possible.
Using the climatic conditions of your region, reducing the amount of mechanical cooling makes running a datacenter greener and reduces the operational overheads.
This would require some changes in datacentre practices, as temperature and humidity setting will be need to be increased to allow or additional free cooling – especially for the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere.
The most interesting discussion took place around zero refrigeration/no chillers as this was only seen by the session participants as feasible in countries that are have predominately colder climates such as the Scandinavian, Russia and the Northern Canadian regions. Although this led to some debate the discussion focused on the fact that many countries in Europe could utilise this technology in conjunction with more traditional technologies for the warmer months. Its will be exciting to see how this will impact the design and build of Northern Hemisphere datacenters.
3. Fred Beringer from SOASTA shared how the elastic scalability of clouds such as the Amazon EC2 can be used to improve load testing and get real time analytic results. Fred has cut the need for cumbersome testing that involved extensive configuration and reduced the time it has taken to receive the results. This has increased the ability to react quickly and scale back testing as soon as any adverse impacts become apparent. The way they are using the cloud to increase efficiency is game changing. It’s a great example of how using the elasticity and on-demand aspect of the cloud can be used as an advantage for businesses. For more check out the SOASTA website
Tags: datacentres
