Managing the Challenges of Density

When considering implementing a power-dense data center, you face a number of challenges: cost, heat, load balancing, data center environmental monitoring and power monitoring, increased network traffic and system configuration management.

With each of these challenges come serious, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but with the proper planning and understanding, it can be done. As the Power Strategy Experts, Server Technology is here to help you successfully manage density and data center power.

Let’s start with a few words from Captain Obvious: density and operation loading of the compute infrastructure is on the rise within data centers. This is happening for a number of reasons, including the need to reduce costs, improve energy efficiency, reduce latency time and to better manage network traffic flow. It’s also clear that as the demand placed on power supplies jumps, so does the need for more power delivery per cord and outlet, driving the necessity for C19 outlets instead of C13s. In short, the days of the pizza box form factor are long gone.

In this Industry Brief, we’ve done a deep dive on how to better manage density within your high-density data center.  Here are some key quotes from the document’s author, Mark Cram:

On data center configuration: “By making use of the available power and configuration management tools provided by the various server manufacturers, the data center designer and operator can come to a consensus on the best approach to achieving the power and compute density needed for their application.”

On thermal considerations: “The ability for modern PDUs to monitor both power consumption and temperature within the cabinet provides a ‘last line of defense’ in the high temperature environment of the exhaust (hot aisle) side of the data center rack … The more individual loads within the racks, the more critical it becomes for the PDU to have granular measurement and reporting capabilities along with supporting the targeted hot aisle temperature.” In the whitepaper, we walk you through computational fluid dynamics software tools and why they make a difference.

On High Density Outlet Technology (HDOT): “With its modular construction and its completely re-thought outlet layout, HDOT provides as many combinations as possible of locking C13 and C19 power outlets, all in a standard form factor that fits most data center cabinets … HDOT is also capable of operating at full power load in a 65˚C environment, allowing the data center to run with a warmer ambient temperature.”