New-Tech Europe | September 2016 | Digital Edition

Powering The Cloud for an Energy- Efficient Internet of Everything

Mark Adams, CUI, Inc.

As the Internet of Everything adds increasing pressure on Cloud services, software- optimized power conversion will realize valuable energy savings to help operators keep on top of costs Introduction: Keeping Up with the Data Deluge The Internet of Everything (IoE) will capture data continuously from activities such as retail, transportation, infrastructure management, manufacturing, mining, food production, security and many others. Figures from Cisco say a large retail store collects about 10GB of data per hour and transmits 1GB of that to a data center. An automated manufacturing site can generate about 1TB of data per hour, of which about 5GB may be stored, and a large

mining operation can generate up to 144TB per hour. Cloud services will hold the key to transforming the data collected into useful information, but will face enormous pressure to keep up with the explosion in data received from more and more IoE applications. Energy is the most significant resource consumed by the data centers at the heart of today’s Cloud services. Over a typical lifetime of three years, the cost to power a server actually exceeds the equipment purchase price. The cost of running the cooling systems vital to maintain a safe equipment- operating temperature must also be considered. The desire to minimize these costs is a serious concern for data center operators, and is driving major industry trends such as siting new data centers in cooler climates and in locations close to plentiful

renewable sources of energy such as hydroelectric plants. Current favored locations include the US Pacific North West and Scandinavia. Operators are also looking to establish higher acceptable maximum equipment operating temperatures to save on cooling costs. However, at the same time as determining better ways of handling unwanted heat, operators recognize the importance of treating the cause: improving the overall energy efficiency of data center equipment in order to reduce operating costs as much as possible. Treating Cause as well as Symptom Change is in progress everywhere, throughout servers, power supplies and system-management software, to maximize efficiency at every point.

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