Power Management to Make Your Data Center Lean and Green

Worldwide, data centers consume around 30 billion watts of electricity, but the majority—as much as 90 percent or more—is wasted. This and other power management inefficiencies can cost modern data center environments in terms of not only energy expenditure but also money, time, and other resources.

Do you know how much energy your data center is using? Are you aware of how much power capacity is available at any given point in time? Are you trending your power utilization data so you can accurately predict when you will run out of capacity? Without the answers to these basic questions, efficient and environmentally friendly data center power management may be impossible. However, the right DCIM software can help you take control of power management in your data centers.

5 Ways DCIM Software Improves Data Center Power Management  

Let’s look at a few ways that DCIM can make your data center lean and green.

• Monitor the Environment. Imagine having a digital dashboard that tells you how safe the environment is for your IT equipment. DCIM provides you with an in-depth look at temperature, humidity, air pressure, and other indicators so you can identify trouble areas, save energy, and maintain a safe environment.

• Manage Energy Usage. Using DCIM, you can trend your data to explore patterns in your data center’s energy consumption. With this information, you can better manage PUE and understand where you are wasting energy in your facility and uncover ways to address it.

• Manage Power Consumption. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know how much power you are using at a moment’s notice? When it is used to manage intelligent rack PDUs and other smart devices in your data center, DCIM can monitor power consumption at granular levels—down to the outlet levels—for precise, real-time data collection. Knowing which devices are using the most power can help you accurately plan for space and capacity, manage customer billback, monitor the health of your data center, and increase uptime and productivity.

• Consolidate Data. Using the available dashboards and monitoring tools, DCIM software allows you to consolidate all your data center information into a single pane of glass. This way, you can identify your overarching current capacity, optimize power consumption, and see where you might be able to move things around to take advantage of excess capacity without increasing your footprint.

• Utilize Data. DCIM not only consolidates data but also makes it easier to analyze and utilize it. Real-time updates and alerts allow you to focus on key risk areas so you can reduce downtime and better control environmental conditions.

Conclusion

Energy efficiency is a major problem for today’s data centers and IT labs. Today’s data center managers and operators are being challenged to do more with less, and data center power management is more important than ever to their efforts.

With DCIM software, data center managers can monitor the environment, manage energy consumption, and ensure uptime. Download a free trial of Power IQ DCIM Monitoring Software from Sunbird DCIM and see for yourself how fast and easy DCIM software can make data center power management.