Planning For Short And Long Term Variations in Power Usage

For centuries, philosophers and laymen have loved to ask the really big questions in life, even if they don’t always come up with satisfactory answers. Questions like “why are we here,” “how can the universe be infinite if it has a beginning” and, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it still make a sound?”

But it’s not always the big existential quandaries that keep data center managers up at night. Sometimes it’s the much more practical concerns, such as “what is the optimal density to provision for and what sorts of variations in power usage should I expect over time?” While this question may not rank up there with “what’s the meaning of life,” it’s still pretty important when you’re overseeing millions of dollars worth of capital investments.

As we’ve mentioned before, the goals of the enterprise data center generally run from efficiency to capacity planning to uptime, power density and keeping current on tech trends. So how do you plan for variations in power usage when starting from scratch with a new data center design?

Accounting for variations in power load across the center is one of the first steps in the design plan. You need to understand power usage over time in relation to application load variability before you can minimize the oversizing of power distribution components. In the white paper, “Managing Variable Data Center Rack Densities,” you’ll learn exactly how to do this, including details on how to double your rack’s loads while staying under the 100kW rating.

Equally important is the need to plan for long-term variations when you’re having the density discussion. Because modular deployment is so popular, allowing for growth is a key step in your design planning. In the whitepaper, you’ll see how adopting the strategy of oversizing the racks helps continue modularity at the pod level and you’ll learn how to deal with the tricky situation of the equipment refresh cycle.

To find out more about planning for long- and short-term power usage variations in the data center, download the white paper “Managing Variable Data Center Rack Densities” today.