Tips to Improve the Efficiency of a Data Center

The nature of data center management has changed drastically in recent years, as organizations understood the importance of increasing the efficiency of their data repositories. The management model of monitoring and improving a data center's performance has become more mature with the introduction of advanced concepts and technology.
Earlier it used to be a simple concept of introducing additional unit in order to improve the performance requirements. However, with increasing data volume this solution also became reluctant for further improvement. To enhance the capabilities of data repository further, it was desired to change the approach of achieving high efficiency by making use of newer technologies and innovative concepts, different efficiency improving procedures and recommendations were drafted. Some of them are discussed below:

• Intelligent Power control mechanism: Technology has assisted various data centers to utilize intelligent UPS Systems. These systems monitor and distribute the power across the facility in a uniform manner so as to optimize the power consumption of the facility. These systems also bypass the need to manually configure the power level according to the conditions and make adjustments by themselves, in order to deliver maximum performance with optimum power utilization.
• Deploying Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle Approach: A Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle approach portraits the physical arrangement of rack spaces inside the facility. Usually, the cold air is fed from the front of the unit and hot air is dispensed from its rear. If the front of one unit is placed at the back of another unit, the effectiveness of cooling unit will degrade and eventually will degrade the performance. An optimized solution for the same is provided here which enhances the performance of data repository with effective temperature management inside the facility.
• Load balancing in real time: An efficient utilization of data center resources includes load balancing during activity. Resource utilization and power consumption can be optimized by 50% during low demand of application data. Deploying tools related to load balancing improves the performance of data center so as that unnecessary processing can be reduced.
• Using Sensors: Air conditioning and humidity control is a crucial step towards building an efficient data center. Humidity and temperature sensors control the flow of air conditioner and humidifiers inside and around the data center racks. These sensors complement the conditions inside the facility before supplementing the additional value of humidity or air cooling. This helps in optimizing the excessive processing of integrated systems and improves performance.

Consolidation of scattered servers and data centers into one unit helps in easier management of these units as all the resources are co-located. If consolidation is not possible, virtualizing the data center for monitoring from a single location is also an alternative in such circumstances. It helps an administrator to monitor different efficiency parameter from a central location and make adjustments accordingly.