By Chris Orlando

The U. S. Office of Management and Budget recently issued a requirement for data center operators nationwide to improve overall energy e ciency by 2018. The new mandate requires that data centers reach a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.5 or better within the specific timeframe. For many corporate or enterprise data center operators, this will mean adopting new energy-efficient cooling and power management systems or migrating to a facility which meets these new standards. 

This move towards sustainability and energy efficiency is not a new trend, but with stricter regulations becoming the norm, large scale users of power, water, and other key data center resources will need to begin evaluating ways to comply and improve operational efficiency. The benefits of these efforts are real, both from a reduction in resource usage, to tangible cost savings which can result from the efficiency improvements. Still, many organizations may simply look to service providers who specialize in operating highly-efficient data center space in order to solve this new challenge.

At ScaleMatrix, their revolutionary green data centers were designed from the ground up with power efficiency in mind. The company was fortunate to have identified this need early on, and has been designing extremely efficient data centers throughout the U. S. since their opening in 2011. According to ScaleMatrix Co-Founder Chris Orlando, “Our proprietary Dynamic Density Control™ (DDC) is a revolutionary change to the traditional raised floor, hot/cold aisle type of data center design. Our DDC platform aligns cooling and power resources with actual client demand, alleviating waste, improving efficiency, increasing density, and delivering unmatched cost savings in the data centers.”

Why is this important? Well, it’s simple Orlando explains, “By dramatically increasing the efficiency of a data center, we are able to significantly reduce the cost of delivering our services. This means better prices for our colocation, cloud, and managed service clients. For companies operating their own data centers, they will either need to meet these new regulatory requirements, or look to partner with a firm like ours, who not only meets these guidelines, but who leads the industry in setting the standard.”

The Dynamic Density Control™ (DDC) platform was developed in 2011 by the team at ScaleMatrix, and over the past four years, ScaleMatrix has helped hundreds of local businesses reduce their IT hosting costs by leveraging their highly efficient data centers. This advancement in efficiency is especially important in markets like San Diego, where electrical utility costs are some of the highest in the nation. For those looking to reduce their demand and improve efficiency, companies like ScaleMatrix can help by providing hosting or colocation services for existing IT infrastructure, or by helping install highly efficient data center cabinet technology within enterprise or corporate facilities.

“We’re seeing between 25 and 30 percent improvement in overall energy efficiency over a traditionally built data center. For clients who choose to host their IT equipment in one of our facilities around the country, this equates to the most cost effective power pricing available. For those retrofitting their facilities with this groundbreaking tech, it can mean tens of thousands of dollars in electrical savings per year or more.

In our local community, the concentration of life science, genomics, and high tech start-up organizations means a larger than normal focus on high-performance computing (HPC). These users in particular are faced with considerable electrical utility requirements, and can truly benefit from leveraging any available efficiency tools to reduce overall cost. In addition to cost and resource savings, ScaleMatrix’ proprietary DDC platform provides unparalleled density capabilities, meaning that you can put more IT equipment in a smaller footprint. By saving space and improving efficiency, ScaleMatrix can help ensure the best possible use of space, power, and financial investment for these high-performance users. 

In addition to the cost savings, there are measurable improvements to the overall sustainability of this industry through the use of the DDC platform. It is estimated that that a traditional data center can have a carbon footprint of between 5M and 150M kilograms of CO2. With ScaleMatrix’ Dynamic Density Control™ Platform, this amount can be reduced by an estimated 30 percent, making the green color of these innovative cabinets more than part of their aesthetics. 

Submitted by ScaleMatrix. Chris Orlando is co-founder and CSMO of ScaleMatrix. www.scalematrix.com 858.633.4300

Link to Article: https://www.scalematrix.com/sdbj_scalematrix_data_center.pdf

Link to San Diego Business Journal: http://www.sdbj.com