Towards Energy Efficiency in Data Centers: An Industrial Experience Based on Reuse and Layout Changes

Abstract

Data centers are widely recognized for demanding many energy resources. The greater the computational demand, the greater the use of resources operating together. Consequently, the greater the heat, the greater the need for cooling power, and the greater the energy consumption. In this context, this article aims to report an industrial experience of achieving energy efficiency in a data center through a new layout proposal, reuse of previously existing resources, and air conditioning. We used the primary resource to adopt a cold corridor confinement, the increase of the raised floor’s height, and a better direction of the cold airflow for the aspiration at the servers’ entrance. We reused the three legacy refrigeration machines from the old data center, and no new ones were purchased. In addition to 346 existing devices, 80 new pieces of equipment were added (between servers and network assets) as a load to be cooled. Even with the increase in the amount of equipment, the implementations contributed to energy efficiency compared to the old data center, still reducing approximately 41% of the temperature and, consequently, energy-saving.

One datum and many values for sustainable Industry 4.0: a prognostic and health management use case

“…In fact, between data and knowledge there is an entire data life-cycle to be covered [33]. For this reason, too many data, collected and not fully utilized, can increase confusion, damper knowledge extraction process [38], and increase costs [39]. Moreover, an additional problem arising in data-driven contexts is the difficult provision of the right data to the right "person", otherwise the usefulness of the entire system becomes borderline [40].…”