By Andreas M. Antonopoulos, SVP and Founding Partner, Nemertes Research Inc.
Aug. 4, 2006

During the heat wave of the last several weeks, many energy suppliers found it very difficult to meet the demand for energy, with brownouts and temporary blackouts in Queens, N.Y., and some towns in New Jersey. This highlights the fact that energy efficiency, heat output, and the availability and reliability of local energy supplies have become increasingly critical design considerations for data centers.

IT departments are struggling with the increased heat output of densely packed data centers and of dense computing platforms such as blade servers. But what happens when you combine denser, hotter data centers with a global heatwave and possibly even a global energy crisis? When the power supply is stretched, as occurred on many of the hottest days recently, brownouts and power cuts are the result. In a modern data center, with the enormous heat dissipation needs of dense blade servers, a power cut means relying on generators to power not just the servers, but cooling systems, too. If cooling fails, the servers will overheat and shut down in a matter of minutes.

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