New-Tech Europe Magazine | Feb 2017

Figure 5. The value proposition from installing ICE to unlock unused power capacity

power step from 8kW to 10kW could be taken care of with locally generated power, holding the utility supply to a constant 8kW. Optimization through dynamic redundancy The false assumption, mentioned earlier, that all servers in tier 3/4 data centers are handling mission critical workloads can be mitigated by assigning non-critical tasks to specific low-priority server racks. This allows additional server capacity to be installed in the data center up to a limit defined by the maximum non-critical load. So, for example, in a full data center where the maximum server rack load of 400kW for all racks nominally requires dual 400kW supplies to provide 100% redundancy, it could be possible to provide additional low-priority server racks to service perhaps 100kW of non-critical workload. Then in the event that one of the 400kW supplies fails,

for IT systems. The Intelligent Control of Energy (ICE ® ) system uses a combination of hardware and software to maximize capacity utilization and optimize performance. The hardware comprises various modules, including rack-mount battery storage and switching units, which can be placed at the various power control points in the data center to support software decisions on power sourcing. The ICE software consists of an operating system that collects telemetry data from ICE and other infrastructure hardware to enable real-time control using power optimization algorithms. To illustrate the system’s benefits, figure 5 highlights an ICE system trial at a top-tier data center. The trial has shown the potential to unlock 16MW of power from an installed capacity of 80MW. Furthermore, the capital expenditure in adding ICE is not only a quarter of the cost that would have been

power is cut to the low-priority server racks to ensure that the mission-critical racks receive full power from the alternate 400kW supply. Using intelligent load management in this way can free up redundant supply capacity, which has no value- add, to provide a significant increase in a data center’s workload capacity - in this instance adding 25% without the need for provisioning more power. Once again, a combined software and hardware solution can provide this dynamic management of power, monitoring and detecting a supply disruption and immediately switching the alternative supply to ensure continued operation of the mission-critical server racks. The Intelligent Control of Energy (ICE ® ) solution CUI has partnered with Virtual Power Systems to introduce the concept of peak shaving in a novel Software Defined Power ® solution

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