The strong energy dependence and the high intensity of use of these resources in data centers (DPC) have forced players to raise these market consolidation strategies in their data centers, in order to contain and reduce the energy consumption of occupation server’s on their infrastructure. One of the strategies employed is virtualization is defined as the partition a physical server into several virtual servers, also called virtual private servers. Although this concept has been used since 1960 and has been applied to different aspects and areas of computing – from full to capacity computer systems or individual components – is now gaining ground.

The most important benefit of virtualization is that it allows to significantly reducing physical server sprawl, resulting in a significant reduction of costs, space and resources. Therefore, this technology allows companies to optimize costs based on server hardware, both equipment and operating costs, while at the same time greatly increases the flexibility of data centers.

Similarly, in the mid-market, virtualization is a model of efficiency and cost savings at all levels indicated. “The simplification of systems and better use of resources allows for an optimization of time and costs applicable to competitive advantages and improvements in the infrastructure of organizations that opt for this route.

“The customers demand greater concern for the safety and reliability that customers of other countries and try their online presence is secure.” To implement a virtualized data centers, manufacturers recommend the use of different methodologies and best practices based on the objective you want to achieve.

When performing a virtualization project, three major phases should be considered: “Planning is a photo of the computing capacity of the DPC, with inventory servers, applications and use of the latter, we discover. What the candidates to be virtualized applications and hardware suitable for use as physical machines; Development and Migration, develop the hardware virtualization and migration occurs through tools that convert current virtual machines, and Operation, through management tools, monitoring procedures incorporating both a physical and virtual machines from the same console. “

Beyond virtualization and server consolidation as resources for energy savings, some companies like NTT Europe Online use a system that compensates CO2 emissions caused by the electricity used by the so-called carbon credits.

Calculating the Efficiency

Another important aspect to consider within a DPC is to calculate the fuel efficiency of its servers and equipment necessary to feed and refrigerate.

“It is elementary to calculate the overall efficiency of DPC, particularly with regard to energy, as the greatest waste is in the transformation of the electricity supplied by utilities to AC so you can have a supply to servers with high availability guaranteed by UPS. This measure is called PUE (Power Usage Efficiency), defined as the ratio of each watt is needed to power a computer on DPC and the amount of watts that need to be taken from the mains. The smaller this ratio is the more efficient use of energy, because the losses in the process from generation to delivery are lower. While PUE in a typical data center is greater than four, the specialized firms have set acceptable ratio of three.

To get a lower PUE rate this has to be to improve the efficient use of resources, both from the power supply, as the DPC and their own IT equipment. It is in the data center – much more than on the servers – where more professional management of energy resources improves the efficiency of its use. “

Replacing traditional servers and other blade servers for ultra-dense equipment has also led to cooling again become valuable asset, like power consumption, since electricity prices are soaring. “There is so much energy savings, but the optimization of this resource is so scarce and expensive. In that sense, the proper management of cooling the heat emitted by these new computers and servers saves considerable energy. However, cooling the data centers that are not designed to house racks of dedicated servers like these, is an additional energy cost, so designing efficient DPC is becoming a lucrative area of knowledge, which requires knowledge extensive and specialized cooling systems, uninterruptible power supply and physics on heat dissipation.

Many companies tend to react to this aspect, as yet unknown, with excessive measures and investments in oversized systems with high costs. Already, the electric charge generated by a server over its useful life exceeds the cost.

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