Modius Data Center Blog

For those of you following my writings, you'll know that I've "been around the block" a few times in the IT world. For 30 years I've seen alot of technologies come and go. Various technologies always seem to sound great at first (to some people), but how those technologies play out over time is a measure of the capabilities, costs, and timing BUT more importantly a bit of 'chance'. Sometimes it just doesn't add up or make any sense, and yet certain solutions thrive while others fail. Data Center Management has always been considered an "ART" rather than a science. Emotions, previous experiences and personal focal points drive investments within the data center. The ART of data center design varies widely from company to company.

That background is a good point of reference when considering the task at hand for today: Explaining just WHY it has been so hard to deploy data center monitoring, and include both IT gear AND facilities equipment in the standard IT planning and performance processes. As it turns out, IT gear vendors have done a fairly good job of standardizing management protocols and access mechanisms, but there have been simply too many incompatible facilities gear management systems over the years. Many are still very proprietary and/or undocumented or poorly documented. Additionally, the equipment manufacturers have been in NO hurry to make their devices communicate any better with anything in the outside world. "Their equipment, their tools" has been the way of life for facilities gear vendors. (I call it "Vendor-Lock").

Ironically, these "facilities" sub-systems (like power and cooling) would likely be considered today as THE most mission critical part of running IT cost-effectively. We need to find any answer....

So, we have two factors to consider:

1. Data Center Design is considered by many to be an ART rather than a science. Depending on the leadership, various differing levels of emphasis is paid in different technology areas.

2. Data Center Monitoring has been historically viewed as difficult to deploy across the field of devices and the resulting limited reports and views to be insignificant and non-impactful to the bigger picture.

Well, times have changed. Senior leadership across corporations are asking the IT organization to behave more like a science. The days of 'art' are drawing to a close. Accountability, effectiveness, ROI, efficiency are all part of the new daily mantra within IT. Management needs repeatable, defendable investments that can withstand any challenge, and yet allow for any change.

Additionally, with the price of energy over 3 years surpassing the initial acquisition price of that same gear, the most innovative Data Center Managers are taking a fresh new look at deploying active, strategic Data Center Monitoring as part of their baseline efforts. How else would a data center manager know where to make new investments in energy efficiency technologies without some means to establish baselines and continuous measurements towards results? How would they know if they succeeded?

Data Center Monitoring can be easily deployed today, accounting for all of any company's geographically distributed sites, leveraging all of their existing instrumentation (shipping in newly purchased IT gear for the past few years), and topping it off with a whole slew of amazing wireless sensor systems to augment it all.

Today, integrated data center monitoring across IT gear and facilities equipment is not only possible, but quite EASY to deploy for any company that chooses to do so.

You just Gotta-Wanna!

I spend a great deal of time talking about data center efficiency and the technologies available to assist in driving efficiency up. Additionally a great deal of my time is spent discussing how to determine success in the process(es). What I find is that there is still a fundamental missing appreciation for the need for 'continuous' real-time monitoring to measure success using industry norms such as PUE, DCIE, TCE and SWaP. I can't tell you how many times someone will tell me that their PUE is a given value, and look at me oddly when I ask 'WHEN was that?'. It would be like me saying 'I remember that I was hungry sometime this year'. The first response would clearly be 'WHEN was that?'

Most best practice guidelines and organizations involved here, (such as The Green Grid, and ITIL) are very clear that the improvement process must be continuous, and therefore the monitoring in support of that goal must also be. PUE for instance WILL vary from moment to moment based upon time of day and day of year. It is greatly affected by IT loads AND the weather for example. PUE therefore needs to be a running figure, and ideally monitored regularly enough that the Business IT folks can detremine trending and other impacts of new business applications, infrastructure investments, and operational changes as they affect the bottom line.

Monitoring technologies should be deployed that are installed permanently. In general, 'more is better' for data center monitoring. The more meters, values, sensors and instrumentation you can find and monitor, the more likely you'll have the raw information needed to analyze the data center's performance. Remember, PUE is just ONE KPI that has enough backing to be considered an indicator of success or progress. There surely will be many other KPIs determined internally which will require various sets of raw data points. More *IS* better!

We all get hungry every 4 hours, why would we monitor our precious data centers any less often?

It's finally here, the ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 has released new recommendations for the temperature and humidity most ideal for data centers.

In a nutshell, dry bulb temperature recommendations now extend down to 64.4-degrees F, and UP to 80.6-degrees F and the humidity range is also expanded at both ends.

Both of these are VERY realistic in today's real world. Extending the LOWER limit  down to 64.4F eliminates a great deal of need to mix HOT and COLD previously required to maintain the previous low limit of 68-degrees F. I could never really get a handle on why the recommendation of 68-degree was imposed. It seems to be counter-intuitive that a data center manager that mainly has a heat issue would be required to add heat back into the precious cooling stream... hence with the lower value, the DC manager will have to do this mix LESS often. Nice!

Perhaps more important for the majority of data center operators, is the official sanction to extend the UPPER limit now to 80.6-degree F. Touche'!!!!  We all know that IT gear is spec'd well above these figures, and raising data center temperatures by even a single degree makes a significant impact into cooling costs. Immediately apparent is the ability to use economizer technologies for a much higher percentage of the hours each year.

The TC 9.9 guideline also shows some real thought for Moisture, with the UPPER and LOWER limits tuned to today's conditions and technologies.

The changes to the relative humidity guideline addresses the risks associated with Electro-static discharge (too low) and Conductive Anodic Filament growth (too high). This CAF basically occurs in dense PC board laminate dielectrics when tiny filaments of Copper spring out due to moisture and sometimes cause semiconductor-like connectivity between adjacent routes and vias (holes).

(Here is some light reading on CAF:  http://www.parkelectro.com/parkelectro/images/CAF%20Article.pdf)

So what does this all mean to you??? It means that the operation of a data center using 'best practices' as recommended by ASHRAE will be much more manageable and potentially much more economical. We no longer have to 'baby' the IT gear, and treat it will soft kidd gloves. Intel, Seagate, Infineon and a slew of other IT gear component makers have gone to great lengths to design their individual component-level devices to work hard in a wide range of environments, and we have barely even approached the limits by any analysis. We have played it very safe for a very long time...

We can now feel empowered to stretch a bit. push a little faster, a little deeper and with a bit less rigor for the environment. A little common sense goes a long way...