Did you know that data centers can use up to 200% more energy than normal office spaces? Fortunately, there is a silver lining to this shocking statistic: higher energy consumption means more room for improvement.

Just follow these tips from the energy management experts at Electro Industries, and you will slash your data center’s operating costs in no time:

 

  • Turn off idle equipment. This seems like a no-brainer, but in large data centers, it can be hard to identify idle servers. Research conducted by Energy Star shows that up to 30% of the equipment running in a data center is “comatose” – meaning it is consuming 30-40% of its maximum power while producing no work at all.

 

  • Consolidate workloads. Many data centers operate under the principle that every individual application needs a dedicated server. This leads to several servers operating at only 20% utilization or less. Instead of this inefficient approach, consolidate your servers by allowing each one to run multiple applications at a higher utilization.

 

  • Turn up the thermostat. In previous years, data centers needed to be kept at about 68° around the clock. Due to recent advancements in technology, data center equipment can now withstand a broader range of temperatures. This means you can now set your thermostat to about 75-78° without worrying about damaging your equipment.

 

  • Separate hot-air and cold-air flows. Most IT equipment is designed to intake cold air from the front, and exhaust warm air at the back. When you have several aisles of servers all facing in the same direction, they begin to intake hot air that other servers have just exhausted. For optimal efficiency, alternate directions so that the front side always faces another front side, and the back side always faces another back side. This will create “hot” and “cold” aisles. Click here to see a visual representation of this method.

 

  • Invest in power monitoring equipment. You may know how much total energy your data center consumes, but do you know exactly where it is being used? Power monitoring equipment, such as energy meters submeters, can pinpoint energy consumption, allowing you to easily identify and improve upon areas of inefficiency.

 

Electro Industries has been helping data centers all over the world reduce their energy consumption for over 40 years. Check out this data center case study to learn how our power monitoring equipment can help you save energy, money, and the environment, or give us a call at (866) 928-7908.