Data centres are centralised physical facilities used by businesses to house their critical applications and data. While data centres help us meet the requirements of real-time data transfer, they suffer from downtime and tend to be an expensive affair for most companies. At the same time, Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) was established to monitor and provide insight into the utilisation and energy consumption of IT and building components, from servers and storage to power distribution units and cooling equipment.
Current processing of our team information data
The way we access and interact with data is constantly changing and will have a real impact on how it is processed and stored. Global data storage is expected to exceed 200 ZB in just a few years, half of which is stored in the cloud.
This presents unique challenges for hyperscale data centres and their storage infrastructure. Cloud data centres are choosing high-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) to store 90% of their EB data. HDDs are tried and tested technology, typically in a 3.5-inch form factor. They continue to provide data centre operators with cost-effective mass storage. The current top HDD capacity is 20 TB. by the end of the century, this figure is expected to reach 120+ TB, all in the current 3.5-inch form factor.
This points to the need for improved thermal cooling solutions. More data storage means more disk rotation, higher speed motors, more actuators, all of which means more power usage. As the power of the disks increases, so does the heat they generate. Secondly, with the introduction of helium to hard disk drives over the last decade, performance has not only improved due to less drag on the disks, but the cells are now sealed.
ESG compliance also needs to be considered. With data centres consuming 1% of global electricity demand and cooling power accounting for over 35% of total data centre energy consumption, data centre owners are under pressure to reduce this consumption.
Comparison of Cooling Technologies
Traditionally, data centre environments use air cooling technology. The primary method of removing heat using air cooling methods is to introduce increasing airflow through the equipment chassis. Typically, there is a hot aisle at the back of the rack and a cold aisle configuration at the front of the rack to dissipate heat by exchanging hot air with cold air. Air cooling has been widely deployed and is well known. It is also deeply rooted in almost every data centre in the world. However, as data volumes grow, it is increasingly likely that air cooling will no longer be able to ensure the proper operating environment for energy-intensive it equipment.
Technologies such as liquid cooling are proving to be a more effective way to remove heat from IT equipment. Precision liquid cooling, for example, allows a small amount of dielectric fluid to circulate over the surface of a server, eliminating almost 100 per cent of the heat generated by electronic components. There are no performance-limiting hot spots, no front-to-back air cooling, and no bottom-to-top immersion limitations present in tank solutions. While the original application for precision liquid cooling was to cool server components in sealed chassis, storage devices are also an ideal application given the increased power demands of HDDs.
High Density Storage Requirements
For high-density HDDs, traditional air cooling pulls air through the system from front to back. What typically happens in this environment is that the disks in the front are much cooler than the disks in the back. As cooler air enters and travels through the JBOD device, the air becomes hotter. This can result in a temperature difference of 20°C or more between the discs on the front and back of the device, depending on the capacity of the hard drives.
Consistency is key for any data centre operator. When temperatures vary by nearly 20°C between the front and back of a disc, wear on the drive is inconsistent, leading to unpredictable failures. The same goes for differences in rack height, as lower equipment tends to consume cooler airflow from the floor tiles.
Liquid cooling for storage
While there will always be discrepancies and varying tolerances in any data centre environment, liquid cooling can mitigate these differences and improve consistency. Research has found that precision liquid cooling is a more efficient way to cool HDD racks with the following results:
Temperature variations of only 3°C for all HDDs, regardless of location within the JBOD
HDD systems can operate reliably at rack inlet temperatures up to 40°C
System-level cooling power is less than 5% of total power consumption
Mitigates acoustic vibration issues
While consistency is a key benefit, it is also important to cool all disks at a higher water temperature. This means that data centre operators do not need to supply chilled water to the equipment. Reducing resource consumption, such as power, water, space, audible noise, etc., can further reduce total cost of ownership and improve ESG compliance, both of which are key benefits for today's data centre operators.
As the demand for data storage continues to escalate, so will the solutions required to effectively cool equipment for hyperscale data centre providers. Liquid cooling of high-density storage is proving to be a viable alternative as it cools drives at more consistent temperatures and eliminates fan vibration, resulting in lower overall endpoint power consumption and improved ESG compliance. At a time when data centre operators are under increasing pressure to reduce energy consumption and improve sustainability metrics, this technology may not only be good for the planet, but also good for business.
Enabling Innovation in Storage Systems
Today's hard disc drives are designed with forced air cooling in mind, so it stands to reason that air cooling will continue to play a role in the near term. Looking at future technology trends, continually increasing fan power in the rack is not a long-term sustainable solution.
Data halls aren't getting any bigger, and the cost of cooling racks is increasing. The demand for greater density and larger data storage capacity is growing exponentially. Storage designed for precision liquid cooling will be smaller, use fewer valuable materials and components, perform faster, and fail less often. The ability to deliver more cost-effective HDD storage solutions in the same cubic space will not only result in total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages, but also greater ESG value.
Improving the efficiency of today's technology and removing the constraints of new, game-changing approaches to data storage can help us meet the global challenges we face and is a step towards a better future.
Why do we need DMaaS and what is it?
A data centre is a centralised physical facility used by businesses to house their critical applications and data. While data centres help us meet the requirements of real-time data transfer, they suffer from downtime and tend to be an expensive affair for most companies. At the same time, Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) was established to monitor and provide insight into the utilisation and energy consumption of IT and building components, from servers and storage to power distribution units and cooling equipment.
However, as data centres became more complex, the need for more functionality in DCIM solutions increased. As a result, DCIM must migrate to the cloud for additional functionality. Therefore, to improve the way data centres are managed and operated, we have adopted DMaaS.
Data Management as a Service (datamanagement-as-a-Service, DMaaS) is a cloud service that provides organisations with centralised storage of different data sources. It enables optimisation of the It layer by simplifying, monitoring and maintaining the physical infrastructure of the data centre from the edge to the enterprise. It is important to note that DMaaS is not DCIM, nor is it a version of DCIM delivered by SaaS.
According to the AAS eResearch Centre and Research Centre datasets. efficiency and scalability of research centres and datasets. She points out that companies using DCIM will never be able to derive insights from the data that match "the results that can be obtained from a DMaaS approach".
In addition, according to a report commissioned by Intel, it can save costs, reduce data centre downtime and improve performance. The report also mentions that DMaaS gives IT professionals the ability to incrementally monitor their data centre infrastructure, receive real-time insights and prevent potential failures thanks to an easy-to-use and low-cost cloud solution.
The authors of this report surveyed 200 IT directors, managers, system administrators and application architects in the U.S. and U.K. this summer. They found that about 45% of respondents cited cost savings as the most important feature in a data centre management solution. As DMaaS is an effective alternative to DCIM tools, companies simply ask users to sign up for an account, while informing the provider of the organisation's specific needs, the number of users registered and the amount of storage each user requires. The vendor then automatically provides and manages the infrastructure required to deliver these services.
As a result, by lowering the cost barriers associated with adoption, DMaaS brings the possibility of intuitive, real-time data centre insights to the industry as a whole, while making data management costs more predictable. It will also provide protection for a company's data assets while extracting additional value from them. For data centres, DMaaS enables maximum security for critical hardware through intelligent alerting and remote troubleshooting.
Unlike DCIM, which is limited to a single data centre, DMaas can help analyse larger pools to provide a more comprehensive view. Furthermore, in addition to providing analytical insights, DMaaS continuously learns and improves based on data collected from all users and industry success and failure cycles. This enables IT to promote data standardisation across the IT environment, while improving accessibility through cloud offerings. The latter means that data managers no longer need to be on-site or have the right human resources to deal with issues or concerns.
While DMaaS is still in its infancy, it is already mitigating the challenges associated with data encryption, data management functions while reducing downtime and enhancing data centre performance.