The steps that can be taken to improve a data centres performance include considering how air comes into the data centre to how it is cooled, how racks are arranged and where cables are run.

Before any investment is made, it is important for an organisation to understand the current levels of performance.

Adopting data centre power monitoring is essential for this and can now be implemented without a complete re-fit and whilst allowing normal, uninterrupted IT operations. This will provide a baseline upon which incremental changes to design and investment in new technologies can be measured.

Our top ten tips

Aisle Management
The most obvious step – although one that still has not been taken by a number of organisations – is to configure cabinets in hot and cold aisles.

Air Supply
Avoid the mixing of cold air supplied from the air conditioning systems with hot return air from the IT equipment.

Air Management
Fit blanking panels to any cabinet free U space and fit brush sealed grommets or blanks to any holes within a raised access floor if it is being used as a supply air plenum.

Containment
Hot and cold aisle containment is essential to the composition of any efficient data centre as it separates hot and cold air within a data centre/server room using a variety of different methods, ensuring the cold air is not mixed with the hot air, reducing hot spots.

Temperature Management
Increase the room (or cold aisle) temperature to between 24?C and 27?C. Understanding of this is now becoming more widespread, however, too many data centre managers still think that their room should be set at a temperature of below 19 degrees C.

Free Cooling
Install indirect or direct free cooling. It could save you as much as 90% compared to traditional cooling costs.

UPS Systems
Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) provide clean, regulated and continual power to the IT equipment. But UPS systems are about more than power protection. It’s about business continuity and your reputation in addition to prolonging the life and performance of expensive computer equipment.

Power Management
Install voltage regulators and/or power factor correction equipment.

Lighting
Improve operations with low cost, energy-efficient data centre and cabinet lighting. LED lighting is a more efficient option than fluorescent lighting as it reduces energy consumption, is low cost whilst improving operations.

Virtualisation
Replace legacy servers and storage with new high-efficiency equipment; for example, leverage virtualisation to maximise the performance of equipment you already have.
 

Get in touch with 2bm to find out more or to book a site survey.