Efforts to optimize a data center infrastructure by reducing costs and delivering high availability are a critical element of corporate continuity initiatives. However, the ability of today’s data centers to meet increasing power and compute demand is constrained by their designs. In a whitepaper, Emerson Network Power reviews four distinct opportunities within the data center infrastructure that will drive this transformation – Efficiency Without Compromise™

• Density Equals Efficiency – The push for high density computing is becoming a common occurrence in many large enterprises with a substantial following from medium-sized businesses, yet many still underestimate the efficiency benefits available through this approach.
  • In areas where space is definitely at a premium, building a high density data center can prove beneficial. Leaving unused space for a decade’s worth of computing requirements is no longer efficient. With the presence of high density equipment and technologies such as blades and server virtualization as well as high density infrastructure systems such as supplemental cooling and power distribution, data center users can just build up and optimize their current space with higher density racks.
• Availability Makes a Comeback – In the race to achieve improved energy efficiency and ultimately, cut costs, some businesses lost sight of that balance and paid the price with costly outages.  In the United States, an alarming number of outages, most of which were triggered by electrical or thermal issues, were reported in the past two years.
  • To strike a balance between efficiency and availability, end users must consider the potential trade-offs between efficiency and availability. These decisions include selecting the appropriate power supplies, utilizing the best cooling approach and choosing the right service/ maintenance program.
• Change Remains a Constant - IT demand can fluctuate depending on everything from short-term holiday buying seasons or volatile stock transactions to strategic organizational changes and new applications. Responding to those swings without compromising efficiency requires infrastructure technologies capable of dynamically adapting to short-term changes while providing the scalability to support long-term changes.
  • These technologies include digital scroll compressors that dynamically regulates capacity to match with room conditions; variable speed drive fans that regulate fan speed as the load increase/ decrease; efficient transformers and modular PDUs that are both flexible with changing technology requirements; scalable UPS systems for flexible capacity and digital controls that can coordinate multiple units into one cohesive system.
• Visibility and Control Enable Optimization - If you can’t monitor and control infrastructure performance, you can’t improve it. Management systems that provide a holistic view of the entire data center are key to ensuring availability, improving efficiency, planning for the future and managing change. The white paper looks at how decision-making and performance can be improved by managing the data center infrastructure from this holistic perspective

These four trends aim to optimize data center infrastructure for design, operating and management efficiency while maintaining or improving – and not sacrificing, availability. This is achieved through the proper utilization of the latest and efficient cooling, power and monitoring technologies in addition to key services.