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30 Minute Interview
Powering the data center
Chris McPherson, Vice President, Sales and Marketing,
APAC, Raritan, and Sanjay Motwani, Country Manager, India, Raritan share their
views with Neeraj Gandhi on handling the power and cooling issues in
a data center, and why a power management strategy is so important.
Chris McPherson |
Sanjay Motwani |
Data centers today are stuck in a heat loop. They actually
end up creating new heat (by powering cooling solutions) while trying to dissipate
heat generated by servers. How can enterprises get out of this vicious circle?
Chris McPherson: This is perhaps the situation inside
many data centers today and enterprises are really concerned about this. In
an effort to get out of this vicious circle, enterprise should look at leveraging
environmental measurement tools. This would help them identify the hot spots.
Once these are identified, enterprises could then focus at cooling these hot
spots only, rather than looking at maintaining a certain temperature inside
the whole data center. It is also important to understand from where is the
heat being generated. All this is a step-by-step process to the overall development
of the data center, and takes time.
Sanjay Motwani: In my view, consolidation of servers
could be a plausible solution to avoid this trap. Enterprises need to identify
the ideal servers, monitor and analyze their performance and power consumption.
Many enterprises are now deploying blade servers to address
power and cooling issues. Is this sufficient?
McPherson: Enterprises need to adopt a phased approach
to bring down their power and cooling costs. Blades definitely help in achieving
this, but they are not sufficient. All components are necessary to bring down
the costs. Choosing one does not mean Utopia. Enterprises need to look at striking
a balance between facilities and IT.
Motwani: Deploying blade server is not the answer
to the power and cooling issues. On the contrary due to the high density in
blade servers the power requirements in a rack are increasing, which means there
is greater heat dissipation per rack now. There has to be a power management
strategy in place. One of the first steps in the same is to make IT Head responsible
for power in a data center.
Why is it so important to have a power management strategy
in place?
Motwani: A power management strategy is important
for the following reasons:
a) Firstly, power, especially within countries like India
is scarce and its optimal utilization is imperative, not a desirable feature.
b) Secondly, the IT infrastructure devices today are both growing in number
and consuming more and more power. Hence the power costs for running a data
center are increasing exponentially. In some cases the cost of power (for both
IT infrastructure & cooling) account for nearly 60% of the costs.
c) Thirdly, at a global scale we are facing the threat of global warming, hence
it is the duty of all to ensure that we contribute in whatever way to minimize
the negative impact on the environment.
Raritan, which has been providing basic level power tools, is now providing
tools for power optimization. These tools allow for measurement and analysis
thereby giving the necessary inputs to the IT team to take corrective action.
There is a lot of discussion on green data centers. Of
what importance is this concept in India?
McPherson: The level of awareness with regards to
greening of data centers in comparatively low in India. Although I must add
that it is increasing and enterprises here are getting serious about making
their data centers green. Power is extremely expensive in this part of the world,
and data centers are suffering as a result. Consumers are not aware of what
an impact this has on the TCO of a data center. Therefore, essentially the awareness
around this whole concept of going green needs to be increased.
Motwani: Greening of the data centers largely depends
on the corporate philosophy of the enterprise. India today houses data centers
of the US. And since the concept of green is being pursued there in a big way,
we are witnessing a trickle down effect here in India too. Indian data centers
in India are also making an effort in this direction. In addition, compliance
is expected to play a big role to help achieve this.
What measures should enterprises adopt to ensure a better
performing and more efficient data center?
McPherson: Enterprises need to adopt a phased approach
in order to ensure that the data center is managed properly, and that the costs
are kept under control. To ensure this it is important to first identify where
the pain points lie and understand what needs to be reduced, before jumping
towards analyzing. I believe it will take at least 12 months before we can see
that happen. Raritan has such products and is in the process of introducing
some new to address the data centers requirement.
Motwani: I believe the onus needs to shift towards
the IT department from the administration as far as data centers are concerned.
IT heads in organizations decide only the facilities that need to be available,
and it stops after this. The onus has to shift on the IT department and data
centers should be treated just like any other business center.
What kind of opportunity does the Indian SMB segment present
for Raritan?
McPherson: Our primary focus is the large enterprises,
though we have solutions that cater to the SMBs also.
What are your India specific plans for 2008-09?
McPherson: India is a growing market for us and we
intend to address the needs of large enterprises. Presently, Raritan
is working with 150-200 large enterprises in the subcontinent. We
also intend to work and develop our channel base here, and would
work with partners who have increased focus on power management.
We would continue to invest in our KVM line of products and would
also introduce new products in line with our power management strategy
in the future.
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