Is Hot IT a False Economy? An Analysis of Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency as Temperatures Rise

As demand for digital services grows, there is need to improve efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of data centers. The largest energy consumer in any data center is the IT, followed by the systems dedicated to cooling. Aiming to improve efficiency, and driven by metrics like PUE, there is a trend towards running data centers hotter to reduce the cooling energy. There is little research investigating the effect this will have on the IT beyond failure rates. To ensure overall efficiency is improving, we must view the data center as a system of systems, taking a holistic view rather than focusing on individual sub-systems. In this paper we use industry standard benchmarks and a wind-tunnel to profile typical enterprise IT. We analyze the effect of environmental conditions on IT efficiency, showing minor increases in temperature or pressure impact the efficiency of servers. Using an idealized, simulated data center case study we show that the interaction between cooling systems, server behaviour and local climate are non-trivial and increasing temperatures has potential to worsen efficiency

Optimizing server refresh cycles: The case for circular economy with an aging Moore’s Law

Demand for digital services is increasing significantly. Addressing energy efficiency at the data center mechanical and electrical infrastructure level is starting to suffer from the law of diminishing returns. IT equipment, specifically servers, account for a significant part of the overall facility energy consumption and environmental impact, and thus, present a major opportunity, not the least from a circular economy perspective. To reduce the environmental impact of servers, it is important to realize the effect of manufacturing, operating, and disposing of servers on the environment. This work presents new insights into the effect of refreshing servers with remanufactured and refurbished servers on energy efficiency and the environment. The research takes into consideration the latest changes in CPU design trends and Moore’s law. The study measures and analyzes the use phase energy consumption of remanufactured servers vs new servers with various hardware configurations. Case studies are used to evaluate the potential impact of refurbished server refresh from an economic as well as environmental perspectives