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System performance is no longer the main topic of data centre discussions. Thanks to higher server densities and processing power, the buzz in the data centre of today is about improving power without driving operating temperatures through the roof.
At first glance, it looks like a non-starter. Hardware footprints have shrunk. Data centres are packed with more and more advanced technologies. And IT organisations are left scrambling to find the power and cooling resources to handle bigger, hotter, hungrier systems.
“Processing performance becomes moot when you don’t have enough power or budget to fuel it,” says Guy McSwain, Hardware Director of BladeSystem Infrastructure at HP. “Enterprise organisations are finding it increasingly difficult – and exceedingly expensive – to power their server systems and keep their infrastructure sufficiently cool. These concerns are usurping all others in many data centres.”
Who’s hot, and who’s not
But new server blade technologies promise to deliver both enhanced power and better cooling capabilities – and independent research is beginning to supply some hard data as to who really delivers the goods.
Earlier this year, Sine Nomine Associates of Ashburn, Va., ran a week-long study of the power consumption and external airflow requirements of a variety of server blade configurations. The research was performed in a data centre environment experiencing light to heavy use.
“The study is significant because it’s the first, true apples-to-apples comparison of blade power and cooling within an environment emulating a typical customer data centre,” notes McSwain. “Some of the information out there has been skewed by configurations that are not in line with real-world operating conditions. The Sine Nomine study is extremely detailed, thorough and unbiased – and the results are conclusive.”
According to Sine Nomine Associates, “Data centres have to be provisioned to handle the maximum expected thermal and electrical load from the number of servers planned for installation at full capacity. For this reason, power testing of servers needs to reflect each unit’s power consumption (which equates to heat emission) at its worst-case or near-worst-case level. … Both the power tests and the airflow tests were run with the servers heavily loaded, so that power consumption and airflow requirements would be near their maximum values.” *
The two blade systems compared in the study:
- IBM BladeCenter-H with HS21 server blades;
- HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure with ProLiant BL460c server blades.
The results
The benchmark reveals that the HP BladeSystem c-Class uses up to 27 percent less power and requires 60 percent less airflow than the IBM BladeCenter-H. “The results validate what we’ve been saying all along,” says McSwain.
The Thermal Logic technology featured in the HP BladeSystem enclosure reduces power and cooling loads right out of the box. And while some vendors focus on single aspects of the power and cooling problem, McSwain says HP takes a holistic approach to synchronise power efficiency across multiple elements.
“Focusing purely on the enclosure is not enough,” he explains. “Organisations also have an opportunity to improve overall cooling efficiency within their data centre. Today, overcooling is commonplace, with air conditioning doled out to an entire data centre to resolve a single hot spot. The current norm is vastly inefficient and extremely costly.”
The cold, hard facts:
McSwain points to HP Dynamic Smart Cooling technologies that optimise power and cooling resources at the rack and server level instead of at the data centre level. Using a grid of sensors, Dynamic Smart Cooling solutions are designed to dynamically provision cooling resources depending on location, temperature thresholds and cooling requirements. Cooling is automatically adjusted for each rack; if one gets too hot, sensors ensure that rack gets more air conditioning.
The Sine Nomine Associates study demonstrates that old thinking is no longer enough. “As the density of servers in a modern data centre increases, factors that could previously be overlooked or solved with simplistic designs become more significant,” the study says. “Nowhere is this more apparent than in power and cooling design.”
* “A Comparison of HP BladeSystem with Thermal Logic Technologies to Competitive Systems,” Sine Nomine Associates, February 15, 2007.
For more information:
Sine Nomine Associates Study
HP BladeSystem c-Class
HP Thermal Logic Technology
HP Dynamic Smart Cooling Demo
Free book available in limited quantities – “Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks: Everything You Know about Cooling Electronics is Wrong”
Transforming Your Enterprise Magazine – HP BladeSystem Special Edition
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