ASHRAE 90454

Abstract

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE The purpose of this book is to provide power trends for datacom equipment and to outline, using examples, how datacom center owners and operators can determine the floor space, power, and cooling required for the design of these centers, taking some of the guesswork out of the design process. It is important to consider the fundamental definition of trend, which for this book is defined as the general direction in which something has the tendency to move. The trends referenced or presented in this book should not be taken literally but rather considered as a general indication of both the direction and the magnitude of the subject matter. The intended audience for this document includes • planners and managers of datacom facilities; • facility design teams planning and designing datacom facilities; • facility architects and engineers who require insight on datacom equipment energy density and installation planning trends; • IT equipment manufacturers, vendors, and suppliers; and • cooling and power infrastructure equipment manufacturers, vendors, and suppliers. The variety of backgrounds and educational and practical experience among the intended audience can result in many different methods used to apply the information in this book. Fortunately, the book is designed for these multiple methods with the understanding that any methodology employed focuses on the concept of growth patterns. Some practical examples of ways the growth patterns can be extracted are provided in this book, but there are additional methods that can be considered in the planning, design, and operation of a datacom facility. The growth patterns can use any baseline and provide a mathematical road map to the future. The baseline can use any metrics or units that make the most sense for the reader. For example, the units can be • dimensionless, • density centric (e.g., W/ft2 [W/m2]), or • interface centric (e.g., kW/rack or kW/cabinet). There is a critical need to bridge existing gaps between the semiconductor/information technology (IT) industry, the facility building design/construction industry, facility managers, and all key stakeholders of the data center through increased collaboration. It is important for the IT and facilities industries to have a general understanding of areas that are not directly their responsibility but do directly impact their budgets, operation, or performance. This same general understanding is important for equipment manufacturers, design architects/engineers, contractors, and service technicians. A critical focus for ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9, Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment, is to not only provide engineering information to support the overall industry but also to have that information reach both the facilities and IT industries. This book contains the best-known hardware power trends at the time of publication. However, there will likely be disruptive technologies that alter the power and power trend trajectories. These disruptions could be in terms of individual existing components or new, unforeseen components. These disruptions could impact not only overall power but also the airflow required to each rack (which has data center implications for large deployments), the development of new server form factors, or the improvement of cooling solutions (both air- and liquid-cooled components). This book does not address the additional power increase that could come from how an organization chooses to deploy their IT applications. The following is an overview of the chapters in this book. Chapter 1—Introduction. The introduction states the purpose/objective of the book as well as a brief overview of the other chapters. Chapter 2—Background. In this chapter, the five key aspects of planning a datacom facility are discussed. In addition, a simple example is provided to show how one might use this process in the planning stage. Finally, the use of the power density metric is discussed. Chapter 3—IT Equipment and Their Components. This chapter introduces common rack definition and types of servers as well as the basic components that comprise a server. This chapter also provides the details of key IT components, including processors, memory, graphics processors, hard drives, and nonvolatile memory. Chapter 4—IT Equipment Workloads, Configurations, and Applications. In today’s environment, volume servers are commonly designed and configured for specific workload types. As a result, in this updated edition volume servers and their corresponding power trends are separated into seven unique workload types. This is a significant change from the second edition, which delineated the power trends only by server size and the number of sockets. In addition, servers are no longer one size and one configuration fits all. These purpose-built servers include specific features and components sized to meet a customer’s workload requirements. This chapter will introduce these evolving workloads and how these workloads are driving the server configuration(s) being developed to meet the market requirements. Chapter 5—IT Equipment Rack Power Trends. With volume servers becoming more aligned to specific workload types and server configurations, there is an increase in server configurations and potentially significantly different power ranges and power trend trajectories, even in the same server size. The distinction of servers by workload type and size provides greater accuracy in projecting power ranges and trends as compared to distinguishing them only by server size and number of sockets, as seen in the second edition. This chapter discusses the updated power trends over the next decade as a function of seven unique workload types and will specifically highlight the compound annual growth rate of power consumption. Chapter 6—Datacom Facility Capability and Considerations. This chapter provides an overview of air-cooled facilities and corresponding power capability per rack for general classifications of facilities. It examines how servers configured for specific workloads are at or surpassing current facility capacity and also discusses trends in airflow requirements and how these relate to the data center capabilities for both air and liquid cooling. Chapter 7—Practical Example of Trends to Data Center Design. The increasing volume server power trends are making it increasingly difficult to properly plan for future space, power, and cooling needs in the data center. This chapter provides tools to help facility planners better understand how to properly apply the updated heat load and power trend data. Step-by-step examples of how to use this data are also included. A Glossary of terms used in this book and common throughout the IT and facility industries is also included for convenience.