Optimizing data center power use is a high priority for data center managers, but they continue to face challenges as power becomes a larger percentage of ongoing data center costs. In fact, Gartner estimates that ongoing power costs are increasing at least 10% per year due to cost per kilowatt-hour (kwh) increases and underlying demand, especially for high power density servers. Approximately 10% of data center operating expenditure (opex) is power, and power is likely to be about 15% of data center opex within five years.
In most cases, improving IT equipment power usage can result in the greatest overall improvement in power usage efficiency. here are five key steps data center managers should follow in sequence to maximize efficiency, as well as a ‘Step 0’ – measuring and monitoring power usage – so that improvements can be monitored along the way