Flexibility and Sustainability

for the Dynamic Data Center

Written by Marc Cram, CDCD

November 2018
Executive Overview Introduction
Transformation is another word for change. And like it or not, the data center is no
Dynamic data center more immune to transformation and change than is our daily lives. The physical
environments are always infrastructure, the software, and the demands placed upon them both vary moment
in flux – changing by moment, day by day. In search of the holy grail of computing, data center
hardware, changing managers seek the new, the innovative, the revolutionary, and embrace change.
Yesterday’s mainframe computing gave way to the PC, which drove the need for
workloads, changing networks, and then servers in turn. Notebooks killed the desktop, and smartphones
layouts, changing goals. have in turn reduced the need for laptops. To have a truly smart phone, however,
requires a continuous flow of data and AI that today both live in a remote data center.
Waste not, want not. Smartphones both generate and consume massive amounts of information daily,
Capital efficiency at times forcing data centers to adapt along the way to the rising needs of the world’s two
billion smartphone users.
demands that we reuse
existing infrastructure, Moore’s law delivered successive generations of faster, more efficient processors
often when something for both the smartphone and the data center server. Thanks to Moore’s Law, three
shiny and new is more years (two CPU generations) between server replacement was once the norm for
attractive or more data center owners. A recent slowdown in the CPU development cycle1, 2due to issues
with semiconductor scaling is leading to numerous changes elsewhere in the data
convenient. center as a means of growing throughput and capacity. Through software, video GPUs
have been adapted to the tasks of parallel processing and blockchain applications.
There are many parts of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) that were once used only for prototyping
the data center that can and validating circuits have been added to the data center hardware mix as a tool for
be reused or refitted to accelerating specialized compute loads. And those operators with the skills and the
money have taken to designing custom silicon of their own (ASICs) to further speed
accommodate the latest up the specialized functions employed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications.
and greatest servers,
accelerators, storage, and While the hardware side of the data center changed, the software running and living
networking. This white in the data center evolved even more rapidly. Thanks to advances in virtualization and
paper makes the case for containerization, many applications today operate independently of the underlying
hardware. For those applications, modern software no longer cares what brand of
reducing the electronic hardware it is running on, or where that hardware is physically located. Hardware has
waste stream during the been abstracted out of the software equation by the “software defined everything”
refresh cycle of the data (SDE) philosophy.
center through reuse of
the racks, PDUs, and other
long-life items.

“The only way you survive is you continuously transform into

something else. It’s this idea of continuous transformation that
makes you an innovation company.”

Virginia (Ginni) Rometty, IBM

1 https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3036660/intel-10nm-cannon-lake-processors-
delayed-again-until-late-2019
2 https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333637 “Global Foundries Halts 7nm Work”
by Rick Merritt
www.servertech.com
Meanwhile, increasing compute workloads, growing In “Generational Change,” a recent publication on
storage demands, new applications, and societal TechRepublic by Patrick Gray3, Gray asserts that
impatience led to a throwaway mentality for much of
the infrastructure that makes up the data creation and “Generational change leads to computing change – the
consumption ecosphere. Servers, switches, storage, heavy lifting of computing has moved away from the
load balancers, racks, and cabling have in the past desktop to the cloud, a form of centralized computing
been thrown away or destroyed during data center that is reminiscent of the mainframes of the 1960s and
refreshes and rebuilds. The WEEE Directive in the EU 1970s, but at a different scale.
began changing the behavior of the data center industry
starting in the early 2000s, and subsequent changes to “One younger gentleman went so far as to note that
WEEE that went into effect in 2014 further curtailed the “Laptops are for businesspeople and old guys.” The
amount of data center and personal electronics going general population, in particular the newer generations
into landfills around the world. and the pool from which you’re likely drawing your
workforce, see the desktop not as the best general-
In this paper, we explore the roles that flexibility and purpose computing tool, but a relic of a bygone era.”
reusability will play going forward in making decisions
around engineering future data center designs, and how “Cloud has also created an economic disincentive to
data centers continue to work on their environmental the historical cycle of upgrading corporate computers
impacts by pursuing efficiency, reusability, and waste on a regular basis. If you don’t need high-powered local
reduction. computing, why upgrade? This is already causing the big
technology companies to shift their efforts elsewhere,
with desktop and laptop sales as the primary casualty of
the cloud revolution.”

It Takes a Cloud to be Mobile

“Executive Jewelry” was once the name given to high-
end ultrathin and small laptops available only to senior
corporate management. Carrying a thin notebook was
a sign of prestige. This is no longer the case with the
widespread adoption by PC OEMs of Intel’s Ultrabook
platform and the migration to smartphones that began in
2007 with the launch of the first Apple iPhone.
3 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-desktop-is-finally-
dead/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=28071455524979917552455482153368
With compute loads shifting away from the desktop to
the data center, desktop and notebook PC refreshes are
pushed out or foregone altogether. So where has the
workload gone? The rise of virtualized and containerized
software applications combined with the “everything-as-
a-service” offerings available on Amazon, Microsoft, and
Google cloud-based solutions has taken away the need
for many enterprise data centers that were once viewed
as being strategic for the success of many corporations.
Cloud computing gives flexibility, speed, and scalability,
along with providing an alternative to committing large
amounts of money to capital investment required to
support data center ownership.

Today, disposable high-end smartphones that have

a two to three-year life span are the new ‘executive
jewelry.’ The growth of smartphone adoption has been
Hardware Refresh Cycles Impact
heavily reliant on the growth in high availability cloud the Dynamic and Cloudy Data
infrastructure. Whether a smartphone is running
Android or iOS, smartphones are dependent on the
Center
constant availability of wireless internet access that
In 2000, the PC industry was already 18 years old. Dell
is piped into large, centralized, cloud data centers
had several years earlier introduced their line of rack-
belonging to Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Baidu,
optimized PowerEdge servers for the data center. The
Alibaba, and Tencent to deliver on the promise of mobile-
32-bit single core Pentium III and Pentium III Xeon were
first applications that support content creation and
the processors of choice and servers offered up to 16GB
consumption, social media, instant messaging, travel,
of ECC SDRAM inside a 7U box.
banking, and e-commerce.
Fast forward to 2018, and the PowerEdge brand is still
offered, but thanks to the cumulative effects of Moore’s
Law, the processors and the memory have changed a
bit. Today’s top of the line PowerEdge supports Xeon
Scalable Processors each with 28 cores/56 threads and
have 48 DIMM slots that support up to 6TB of memory.
Modern servers consolidate the work of more than 50
servers from the Y2K era, even before accounting for the
impact of virtualization and containerization that enable
an even greater number of processes and workloads. In
2018, more than one million new servers are being sold
each quarter according to IDC and Forrester, principally
into the hyperscale cloud service providers and large
enterprise data centers.
How many generations of servers were thrown out by Despite the concerns over the waste stream, one of
smaller data centers moving their applications to the the many positives of data center refresh has been the
cloud, or recycled in cloud data centers around the reduction in PUE figures across the industry. Where it
world in the time between 2000 and 2018? More than was once common to see a PUE figure in the range of 1.5
most of us in the industry care to admit. Figures on this to 2.0, leading cloud providers today have data centers
are hard to come by, but if we conservatively assume with PUE figures near 1.1, due principally to new data
a 5-year server lifespan, then at least 3 generations of center designs and new generations of high efficiency
servers were thrown out and entered the waste/recycling servers that offer greater throughput while supporting
stream. It is feasible for some enterprise data centers higher operating temperatures.
that as many as five generations of servers were taken
out of commission during that time frame, as it was once
popular to replace servers every three years. But where
did these obsolete systems go?

A 2014 compilation4 of EPA released data by Electronics

TakeBack Coalition (graph above) shows the magnitude
of the E-Waste stream and the percentage of items
recycled versus that going into the trash/landfill. The
rise of conscientious companies coupled with growing
regulatory requirements has diverted much of the flow of
no longer useful electronics into recycling programs and
away from landfills.

4 http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wp-content/uploads/
Facts_and_Figures_on_EWaste_and_Recycling.pdf
Driving Lower PUE
There are several data
center trends that have
contributed to improving
(lower) PUE. Amongst
them are:

New LED lighting

Higher operating
temperatures

Free air cooling versus

CRAC or CRAH
Figure 2 - Trends in Data Centre Energy Consumption
Higher levels of
Flash storage has replaced rotating media for many applications, lowering power
automation, requiring consumption and reducing data access times. Newer hyperscale data centers employ
fewer people fewer people per server, thus requiring less light, heat, and cooling overhead required
for the human occupants.
Deduplication of data
But “the best never rests,” and hyperscale data center operators like Google are no
exception. Not satisfied with the prior 5 years of nearly flat PUE scores (see Figure
Resilience through 3, below), in 2018 Google deployed AI software to operate and optimize its cooling
software via virtualization systems. So far, Google reports that employing AI led to a further reduction in energy
and containerization usage of nearly 30%.

Workload consolidation
via virtualization and
containerization

Adoption of flash storage

versus rotating media

New CPUs, GPUs, RAM,

and connectivity

Figure 3 - Google

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Growing Demands
of the Data Center
While Moore’s law and
consolidation efforts have
worked to ‘densify’ the data
center, new applications and
new workloads are working to
oppose the trend and expand
the size of the data center or
redistribute it out to the edges.

• Big data

• IoT

• Artifcial Intelligence

• Augmented Reality

• Virtual Reality

• Video going from HD -> 4K ->

8K

• Hyperconvergence

• Disaggregation

• Silicon photonics

• In rack UPS

• Growing digital media creation

and consumption

• Smart cities

• Autonomous vehicles

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Corporate Responsibility and IT for data centers to reuse existing buildings such as old
factories. In Chicago, 6“buildings that once processed
Infrastructure Reuse checks, baked bread, and printed Sears catalogs now
stream Netflix and host servers engaged in financial
At some point, every piece of IT hardware reaches trading.”
the end of its useful life. Greenpeace offers their 10
Principles for Corporate Responsibility as a means Retrofitting these buildings as data centers is a complex
of communicating their environmental concerns task, requiring much forward thinking, and planning for
and driving change in corporate behavior. The fifth a high level of flexibility and reusability of the various
principle calls for states to require due diligence in devices and systems therein.
reporting, along with cradle to grave responsibility for
corporate products and services. The implications for
manufacturers in the data center equipment space are
clear. Likewise, for the data centers themselves. 5IT
hardware manufacturers have
adopted the tenets of “Reduce,
Reuse, Recycle,” and so have
many data center owners.
In the EU, the directive on
waste electrical and electronic
equipment (WEEE Directive)
entered into force in February
of 2003. The directive was later
modified in 2012, and imposed
further restrictions on what
materials and products
could enter the landfills of
Europe. As most IT products
are designed and certified to
operate globally, the WEEE
requirements have generally
been picked up and enforced
in other countries outside of
the EU.

While server refreshes

have been good for energy
efficiency, other parts of the IT
infrastructure within the data
center have not needed to be
replaced as often. Generators,
UPS, battery banks, and IT
racks have a longer service life
than the servers.

Taking the idea of WEEE

beyond the electronics of a data center, cities and states
across the USA have already taken on the challenge
presented by Greenpeace and are offering incentives
5 https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/14185/how- 6 https://theconversation.com/the-factories-of-the-past-are-
do-we-make-corporations-more-accountable/ turning-into-the-data-centers-of-the-future-70033
 Robert McFarlane wrote on TechTarget “When your
(growing) data center runs out of space, power or cooling
Where Will Your Data Center Be in -- or all three -- you have some difficult decisions to
20 Years? make. Those deliberations become more challenging if
your business is likely to move within the next several
years, or if there are discussions about eventually
John Hawkins, VP of Corporate Marketing for vXchange, transferring some computing to the cloud or to a hosting
wrote “Where Will Your Data Center Be in 20 Years?” site. These decisions are important, and not ones you
an article appearing on DataCenterKnowledge.com in want to rush. The choices an organization makes,
2015. In it, Hawkins cites the following about data center after all, could be costly -- in both capital outlay and
flexibility: operational effectiveness.” 9

According to Pitt Turner, executive director with the Uptime The design and supplier choices made by a data center
Institute, there is no set lifespan to a data center. “A data team have a direct impact on the longevity of the data
center that is designed with flexibility really doesn’t have center.
a life expectancy,” says Turner. “Over the life of the data
center, you need to replace the capacity components just
like you replace the tires on your car.” Turner further states,
“Chillers, UPS, that sort of stuff, needs to be replaced and
you have to have a data center infrastructure that will allow
you to do that.” 7

Reinforcing Hawkins’ statement, “A hyperscale facility

could last 15 to 20 years,” says Malcolm Howe, critical
systems partner at engineering consultancy Cundall.
“The steel frame and paneling may last 60 years, but the
IT will be updated every three to four years, recycling the
servers and crushing the drives.” 8

7 https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/12/09/
will-data-center-20-years
8 http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/design- 9 https://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Data-
build/the-data-center-life-story/98671.fullarticle center-strategies-to-extend-your-facilitys-life-span
DC Design for “Innovation is the change that
Flexibility
unlocks new value.”
There are several design
elements to look for when
seeking a building suitable - Jamie Notter
for housing a data center.
A few of them are: The Role of Flexibility in Extending the Life of the
• High ceilings Data Center
• Concrete floors
• Tall, wide doorways Forward looking data center design means choosing components that are easily
serviced, easily reused, and/or easily recycled. Utilizing standard 19” IT racks
• Minimal number of
means that they can be sold off to another data center for re-use at the end of a
interior columns data center’s life, or that the metal can be sent out for recycling. Rather than using
• Large power feed from rack power distribution units (PDUs) that are custom for a given rack configuration,
the utilities, preferably choosing a PDU that offers flexibility down to the outlet level can enable different
from a renewable source rack elevations to be built over time and help avoid having to rip and replace the PDU
to accommodate an equipment change in the IT cabinet. Colocation facilities with
• External space for
multiple tenants per rack and IT lab environments are both in need of flexible PDUs.
generators, fuel cells, or
solar The innovative outlet shown below works as both a C13 or a C19 outlet, meaning the
• Ambient air temps PDU doesn’t have to be replaced just because two single U servers using C13 outlets
that are low were pulled out to accommodate a 2U AI accelerator box that needs a pair of C19
outlets. Instead, the innovative Cx outlets of an HDOT Cx PDU can support the new
configuration without requiring adapter cords or replacing the PDU. This flexibility
works well for the dynamic data center that is required to make rapid changes driven
On the interior by data growth or changing workloads, and it helps avoid sending another PDU into
infrastructure side, a the E-waste stream by making a single power strip that can be used in a broader
flexible data center is likely variety of applications.
to have:

• Overhead power busway

• Overhead cable raceways
• Standardized,
rectangular layouts
suitable for standard IT
racks

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One Incredible PDU
with Limitless Possibilities

An HDOT Cx PDU is well-suited

for:
• Dynamic data centers where frequent hardware
change is occurring
• Lab environments where gear is brought for proof-of-
concept or development
• Wherever outlet density and power density are both an
issue
• The rack level plan is not known until the last moment

REDUCE
REUSE
RECYCLE
The Incentive for Investing Today for Reusability in the Future
Your data center is not a static environment. It is dynamic, with changing workloads, changing amounts of data going east-
west within the data center as well as north-south, in and out of the data center. Not all workload expansion is going to the
cloud, however, and in those cases data center operators find themselves accommodating newer, faster, denser hardware
in the form of new drives, new CPUs, new memory technologies, AI accelerators such as ASICs and FPGAs10 , and new
networking topologies. Flexible infrastructure is crucial to the long-term reusability of your data center.

In 2018, a recent update to US tax law known as Section 179 has increased the deduction limit on equipment purchases to
$2.5M. For the medium-sized data center operator, this potentially translates into thousands of new unpopulated racks, or
thousands of highly functional intelligent PDUs for your data center.

In addition to the expanded Section 179 deduction, the IRS increased bonus depreciation from 50% to 100% for assets
placed in service prior to 1/1/2023. The benefit of the bonus depreciation, as opposed to the Section 179 is that there is no
limit on the purchases you make. This represents a great opportunity for the small to medium businesses to update their
infrastructure today.

If you’ve not already done so, talk to your accounting and finance teams today to see what the tax law changes mean for
your enterprise. At Legrand, we believe that now is the time to invest in powering your data center with HDOT Cx. The
future of your data center depends on it!

Why Legrand

10 https://itpeernetwork.intel.com/inteldcisummit-fpga/?cid=em-elq-36376&utm_source=elq&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36376&elq_
cid=3627084
Why Server Technology
for Converged Power
Server Technology’s power strategy experts have provided power solutions
for labs, data centers, branch offices and telecommunications operations for
30 years. Over 60,000 customers around the world rely on our cabinet power
distribution units and award winning power management solutions to reduce down-
time, facilitate capacity planning, improve energy utilization, and drive efficiency. With
the best quality, best technical support and most patents, Server Technology products
provide uncompromising reliability, innovation, and value for the datacenter.

Only with Server Technology will customers Stay Powered, Be Supported and Get Ahead.

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Interested in learning more about how Server Technology can help you manage and distribute power in your datacenter?
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