Data Center Guides (Design, Energy Efficiency and Testing)

Data Center Trends

Data center power consumption continues to grow at an alarming pace. It is projected to reach 100 billion kWh at an annual cost of $7.4 billion within two years, with a worldwide carbon emissions impact similar to that of the entire Czech Republic.

In light of this trend, computer systems researchers, application designers, power and cooling engineers, and governmental bodies have all launched research efforts to improve data center energy efficiency. These myriad efforts span numerous aspects of data center design (server architecture, scheduling, power delivery systems, cooling infrastructure, etc.).

However, with few exceptions, existing efforts focus narrowly on energy-efficiency of single subsystems, without considering global interactions or implications across data center subsystems.

Data center design is a relatively new field that houses a dynamic and evolving technology. The most efficient and effective data center designs use relatively new design fundamentals to create the required high energy density, high reliability environment.

The following guides in this section capture many of the new ‘standard’ approaches used as a starting point by successful and efficient data centers.

Browse guides and papers

Note that all documents in this section are free to download. Navigate through sub-pages to discover all documents.

The Basics Of Electrical Distribution Equipment In Data Centers (For IT Professionals)

Voltage standards are usually stated using two values such as the IEC standard 400/230V or the North American voltage 415/240V for high-efficiency green data centers. However, IT professionals still have… Read more

Mar 12, 2018

Best practices guide for cabling the data center

Today’s data centers house a large number of diverse bandwidth-intensive devices, including bladed sewers, clustered storage systems, virtualization appliances, and backup devices – all interconnected by networking equipment. These devices require physical… Read more

Sep 18, 2016

Guidelines for using isolation transformers in data center UPS systems

UPS systems have historically had one or more permanently installed internal isolation transformers to provide one or more of the above functions, depending on the design of the data center… Read more

Aug 28, 2016

Installation and Maintenance of Data Networking Equipment (Guidelines and Best Practices)

This chapter outlines the guidelines and best practices for the installation of data networking equipment. The information is mainly based on the experience gathered from environmental assessments that were performed… Read more

Jul 16, 2016

Data Center Best Practices Guide (Energy Efficiency Solutions)

Data centers can consume 100 to 200 times as much electricity as standard office spaces. With such large power consumption, they are prime targets for energy efficient design measures that… Read more

Jun 26, 2016