HP warns of data centre ‘trapped capacity’

Trade

28 November 2008

IT departments are leaving extra data centre capacity untapped in their server rooms, according to new research from HP. In response to the findings, HP has started a programme to help enterprises address a phenomenon it calls “trapped capacity”.

The problem stems from the “faceplate” maximum power load recommendations that hardware vendors place on their products, according to Mark Linesch, HP’s vice president for enterprise storage and server software.

“That is a worst-case envelope for energy capacity,” said Linesch. “What often happens is the actual energy usage of a particular server is based on its workload within the data centre. There is a difference between what’s provisioned and what happens under load at the peak, and that is the trapped capacity.”

This unused capacity means many firms overestimate the total load on their servers, leading to floor space going unused in existing rooms while energy is wasted on otherwise unnecessary additional data centres.

HP hopes to alleviate the problem by new services, including a software tool that allows companies to check the maximum energy use on their servers and to adjust the power load maximums accordingly.

The firm is also rolling out a new consulting programme, as well as a line of energy-efficient servers. HP claims many businesses will be able to reduce operating costs, cut energy costs and extend the lives of older data centre set-ups.

“The technologies we are using are a combination of hardware and software that provide an accurate measurement based on workload at peak, and the ability to cap energy usage,” said Linesch. “What we are enabling people to do is get the real energy usage under the real application workload and say that you can fit another 15, 20 or 100 servers into the power envelopes you have already provisioned.”

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