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How To Maximize Space In Your Data Center

Data Center

Data center is known as the backbone of any organization. This certainly makes it the most important space, whether you operate an in-house datacenter or you’ve collocated your equipment to an off-site facility. There are various cost associated with it in the form of equipment, accessories, real estate and other physical requirements. You can always save significant cost of operation by optimizing your datacenter. First, you need to have a checklist of the equipment and consider how thedata center costs are rising on the whole.

Here are some of the strategies with which you can not only save space in your data center but can also have monetary benefits from it:

Check Power, Cooling Capacity Benchmarking at Design Stage

Today in some of the DC it has been observed Racks space is underutilized due to non-availability of Power or cooling. It is very difficult to upgrade at later stage and sometime it is just impossible.It is always better to go with 3 phase power bus bar system which has option of using single or three phase tap off Boxes. Later to increase the Power we can use 3 phase Power distribution.

Also it is better to use inverter technology variable speed compressor in PAC to have Control on OPEX during initial stage of DC where full capacity is challenge.

While Purchasing New Equipment

When you go to buy a new equipment for your data center, always remember that the smaller your equipment and servers are, the less space they take up and the less money they cost you.  Always try to choose the most compact equipment possible when purchasing and consider utilizing the latest in rack server technology that takes up the minimal space.

Maximize Vertical Length, Minimize Horizontal Space 

This is one of the growing approaches which are being widely adopted by companies. In the data center, growing vertically instead of horizontally can help accommodate growth, increase capacity and increase density without taking up floor space. Now we have a wide range of variety available by manufacturers in terms of Rackmount solutions. Starting from regular 45U of rack space to 48U, 50U and 52U of rack space is also available, which can add up to 14 more inches of space for vertical growth.

Always Look for Smaller-Diameter Cable

Cables can be most troublesome in any data centers and we should choose them very carefully. The space-saving cabling systems offer a smaller OD size, allowing rack space to be used for more equipment and less cable management. With the smaller size of cables, it can be easily managed. The option of colored cables makes the decision making process easier and easily separate different equipment inside the rack system.

Using Right Cooling Techniques to Maintain Necessary Temperatures in Data Center

Cooling plays important role in the health of data center equipment. We often see that the CRAC cooling systems are unable to handle high power densities and temperatures associated with the servers. Here, the implementation of a hot- or cold-aisle containment strategy can come handy and with the proper strategy you can save valuable space, energy and cost while still maintaining appropriate temperatures.

Decommissioning Idle IT Equipment

IT managers often forget to notice the idle equipment in their IT closet. One very effective way to optimize operations is by decommissioning idle IT equipment. The removal of idle equipment creates space in the data center and increases its capacity, power, cooling and weight.  The Idle equipment draws a good amount of power and this can add up quickly while considering the overall power consumption and cooling needs. By deployment of Intelligent PDU finding idle servers/equipment can be at fingertip of DC Managers.

Data CenterInfrastructure management with Proper Software/ Tool

Most of the times while adding up new servers or decommissioning the old ones, companies miss the trick of perfectly managing the servers. With the poorly managed servers in a data center, things can go sideways very fast. Always be sure to keep the servers up to date, backed up, and plugged into battery backups and should be checked daily. Removing the extra servers and replacing the old ones with the latest available in the market can not only free up space, but could be efficient in handling the extra load.

All the methods mentioned above will be a big challenge with a manual data baseand today with proper deployment of DCIM software this can become a reality.  So, it is better to select all equipment and communicate it through SNMP/Modbus which can make life a lot easier in the data center.

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