Powering Up And Cooling Down The Data Center

For many companies, virtualizing the servers in phases is better than trying to do it all at once. "I saw one customer, Autodesk, go from 240 servers down to 11 servers using VMware," he said.

Nth Generation Computing, a San Diego-based solution provider, is having a lot of success with Hewlett-Packard's BladeSystem c-Class series of low-power-consumption blade servers and is starting to see a couple of million-dollar deals with them, said Rich Baldwin, president and CEO. "We're also selling VMware [server virtualization technology] on top of it," he said. "We sell the cooling capabilities of the c-Class servers and virtualization to get 5:1 utilization out of them."

But while power and cooling issues are increasingly important when selling servers, they are not yet the primary sales point, said Pat Edwards, vice president of sales at Alliance Technology Group, a solution provider in Hanover, Md.

Alliance has a couple of data mining customers that have run out of the ability to bring in new power to their data centers, and the company is talking up the benefits of Sun Microsystems' servers based on its new lower-power- consumption microprocessors. "We have not sold a deal with Sun where the sole consideration is power," Edwards said. "But customers are taking it into consideration."

Alliance also is talking to customers that are rebuilding their data centers, and Edwards said part of those discussions revolve around server power requirements. "It's an important part of the discussion," he said. "But it depends on market and customer demand. It could become more important if the cost of electricity keeps rising."

Storage devices are another area where solution providers can help clients cut power and cooling costs, although in this case there is still much work to be done on the manufacturer side.

Benjamin Woo, vice president of sales and marketing at ASI Systems Integration, New York, said storage is not keeping up with servers in power-reduction technologies. For instance, higher-density packaging, such as putting four drives on a storage blade and building higher-capacity drives, will continue to add to heat and power problems.

While only the largest integrators get involved in designing or building a data center, many solution providers bring in outside help as a service to their customers. Key Information Systems does not deal with heat issues, "but you have to address it," said Pete Elliot, director of marketing at the Woodland Hills, Calif., IBM solution provider. "We've helped customers move their data centers, and while we don't deal with the heat, we go in with a third party to help spec the impact it has on power and heat. We know it's a critical component when customers move their data center."

Key Information Systems mainly does this as a customer service, Elliot said. "Relations with a lot of our customers are really deep," he said. "We don't worry about a dollar here or a dollar there."