Data Center Energy Efficiency Drives Can Cost More Than They Save Suggests New Whitepaper

LONDON - June 3, 2013 - PRLog -- Future Facilities, global leaders in 3-dimensional CFD simulation for data center design and operational management, has announced the publication of a new whitepaper entitled “An energy efficiency drive that can cost more than it saves (http://www.futurefacilities.com/media/info.php?id=181)”. The new white paper demonstrates how upgrades made with the objective of improved efficiency can in fact result in higher data center operating costs.

The new whitepaper takes the example of a common efficiency measure implemented in data center cooling systems of upgrading to modern Electrically Commutated (EC) fans. Modelling this scenario in a customer facility showed that such an upgrade changes the cooling performance of the entire facility, which in turn can create new and expensive to resolve problems.

Dave King of Future Facilities (http://www.futurefacilities.com/index.php), the whitepapers author said, “Any upgrade that changes the airflows within the facility changes the overall behaviour of the data center and may bring new problems as a result. Only modelling also allows you to clearly assess the full impact of an upgrade to the facility including future capacity planning and deployment implications that could lead to lost or stranded capacity. Only modelling can show you if an upgrade will create new hotspots and enable you to calculate the full costs related to a possible deployment including all secondary costs, which are the ones that can really hurt you.”

The Future Facilities whitepaper recommends that operators rigorously model each proposed change to determine the full impact across the data center as a whole. It concludes that performance is entirely situation dependent as each facility has a unique thermal environment. Therefore, standard solutions may not necessarily bring the benefit promised. The paper concludes by stating that changes can bring tangible benefits but only by modelling them can these benefits be identified and effectively harnessed. Change without sufficient analysis can create new problems and costs that far outweigh the intended benefit.

The full whitepaper: “An energy efficiency drive that can cost more than it saves” can be downloaded from http://www.futurefacilities.com/media/info.php?id=181.

About Future Facilities

Future Facilities is a leading provider of powerful design, optimisation and management software for mission critical facilities and data centres. The company’s solutions are applied to ensure all capacity, efficiency and reliability criteria are met throughout all phases of the facility lifecycle.

For Further Information

Hassan Moezzi
Future Facilities Limited
hassan(DOT)moezzi(dot)FutureFacilities(dot)com
+44 0-207-840-9540
http://www.futurefacilities.com

Press Information

Scott Purchas
SPA Communications Limited
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