Fundamental Ways to Reduce Data Center OPEX Costs

Melvyn Wray

SVP of Product Marketing

2What are data center OPEX costs

» Electricity costs

» Licence costs

» Maintenance costs

» Labour costs

3Obvious electricity cost savings

» Virtualization

» Power efficiency

» Air conditioning efficiency

4Virtualization

» Reduces overall power consumption

» With a high performance server consuming ~1kW, the power savings are large

» Each server consumes ~£800 of electricity per annum (based on 10p per kW)

5Power efficiency

» Select data center equipment with the highest power efficiency

Choose 90% over 80% efficiency

Inefficiency produces noise and heat

Heat requires air conditioning

6Air conditioning

» Highly efficient air conditioning typically has an Energy Efficiency Ratio (ERR) of 10

ERR = cooling energy (Btu/hr) / power consumption (W)

Effectively, 25% additional energy is needed for cooling

7Air conditioning

» Recommendations are to keep ambient temperatures between 20~24oC

» To reduce costs – set temperature and run at 24oC rather than 20oC

» Layout of the equipment, to allow better airflow will reduce ‘hot spots’

8Rack layout – non force air cooled

More localized heat Less localized heat

SwitchSwitch

9Licensing costs

» 25% saving on Microsoft Server Licences with Enterprise Licence

Four Virtual Server Licences for the price of three Standard Licences

» >25% savings with Data Center Licences when deploying over eight virtual machines

10Maintenance costs

» Without virtualization, each server hosts an application

Hardware availability is critical

Maintenance contracts mandatory

» With virtualization, multiple servers host multiple applications

Hardware may fail, with minimal impact

Lower costs maintenance can be considered

11Labour costs

» With critical hardware, IT support labour costs are higher

More experienced staff to deal with emergencies

More cover to deal with out of hours emergencies

» With virtualization, critical issues are reduced

12‘Hidden’ potential cost savings

» Networking equipment

Electricity costs

Heat generation and dissipation

13Power consumption

» Not all switches are created equal

Power consumption across manufacturers ranges by over 200%

» Data centers require throughput – so Layer 2 is ideal

Layer 3 switches are more complex, consume more power, and are more expensive

14Power supply efficiency

» Inefficient power supplies generate more direct heat.

Select power supplies with high efficiencies (>80%)

More heat means more money spent heating and then cooling the air with air-conditioning

» The difference for a 100W power supply being 70% or 90% efficient in a switch equates to >£20 p.a.

15Short cable lengths

» ‘Green’ Ethernet

Switches automatically detect copper cable lengths, and reduce transmitted power accordingly

» IEEE standard ‘Energy Efficient Ethernet’

In periods of low traffic utilization, the ports are put into a low energy ‘idle’ mode

16Energy Efficient Ethernet

» One Lawrence Berkeley Labs researcher estimated the IEEE effort alone could save $450 million in energy costs a year just in the U.S., $80 million just from data centers

» The researcher estimated that a Gigabit interface card could shave up to 1.5W off its power consumption and a 10Gbit card up to 10W by scaling back data rates at times of low traffic

17Inter-connections

» Different inter-connects vary largely in cost, but also in power

Connection Speed Power (Max.)

SFP multi-mode 1G 1W

SFP copper 1G 1.3W

XFP multi-mode 10G 1.4W

SPF+ multi-mode 10G 1W

SFP+ copper (Twinax) 10G 1W

CX4 copper 10G 4W

18Turn off the lights!!

» Many data center or server rooms are kept locked and may not have any humans enter for days at a time

Turn off the lights to save cost

Also helps reduce heat

19Eco-friendly switches

» Allied Telesis eco-friendly switches can also turn off their LED indicators

Manual (via front panel button)

Auto, after 15 minutes after pressing the button

» Helps save up to 3% of power as it reduces the load on the power supply

20Remove the fans

» For non forced-air systems, some Allied Telesis switches are now so low power that they are fanless

More reliable – no moving parts

Less power consumption – no fan to drive

21Out of hours operation

» Do you need to run all the services 24/7?

Weekends

Bank holiday

10pm ~ 5am

» Consider powering down (idle) non-essential items to save power

22Power down servers

» With virtualized applications being hosted on multiple hardware hosts, some hosts can be powered off

Issue is powering them back on!

Software and hardware dependent

One solution is ‘intelligent power strips’– Can power on/off servers via IP over the network

23Power down/off - out of hours

» VoIP phone systems

Legally you have to have some phones that can connect to the outside world for emergencies

Other phones can be powered off – as they are powered via Power-over-Ethernet; this is energy from and heat generated in the server room

Simple ‘configuration scripts’ can power down individual named ports

24Power down/off - out of hours

» Wireless access points

If no one is present in the building – there is no need for a wireless network

Uses Power-over-Ethernet technology, so the connected switch can be programmed

25Summary

» Allied Telesis provides Network Infrastructure equipment for use in Data Centers, which can help reduce both the OPEX, and help increase reliability.

» For more information please visit – www.alliedtelesis.com

Thank you for your time