And I thought the price of gas was high
by David Merrill on June 15, 2006
I came across this great paper from APC on cost of ownership of the data center environment. I love the chart on page 6 that breaks down environmental costs of a server or network data center. There is always ‘the devil in the details’, and some great TCO insights here are real devils:
- Electricity is 20%
- Power equipment (conditioning) is 18%
- Space is 15%
- Engineering and installation is 18%
- Cooling equipment is 6%
I wonder if the electricity costs include the AC electricity costs as well…
A simple way to calculate your electric bill for the data center is to add up all the kVA or kWatt ratings of all the servers, storage network gear. Hold that kWatt number in your head, then add up the BTU of each of the units. Convert BTU to kWatt by dividing the BTU by 3413. Take the summary of kVA/kWatt and the converted BTU number and multiply by your price per kWatt-hour from the local utility provider. You may have to add extra costs for conditioned power, battery backup etc. so the price of electricity can be very high indeed.
With the recent energy spike, electricity costs are under more scrutiny. This APC papers gives some ideas on how to reduce TCO for the environmentals.
Comments (4 )
Susan Schwartz on 20 Jun 2006 at 2:23 pm
Hi David,
I have been reading your blog~ very interesting info and forwarded a couple of things to our Data Center Management team. Would you be interested in talking live at some point. I am looking at ways for SAVVIS to partner with Hitachi and believe that it could ultimately benefit both companies.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Susan
Dan Marsh on 22 Jun 2006 at 7:18 am
I would also suggest calculating the specific datacenter’s watts per sq. ft. It can skew the space costs and most clients don’t understand it at first. A datacenter has to limit the watts per sq. ft. allowed, in order to provide enough power and cooling for every client installed. With servers being so high powered, yet phsyically thin, it means that most colo clients will have to purchase more floor space than they physically require. This gives a high density colocation client more than enough room for a roller rink around each rack. Clients doing TCO often underestimate the % cost of space do to this.
Timothy Doherty on 25 Jun 2006 at 8:04 pm
With the need for more power per foot, i’ve seen applications now running at 13.5 kW per rack, and the cost of power rising, concerns about space/power/cooling must be adjusted accordingly. Many high density users today squable over paying for additional space yet expect in excess of 300 watts per foot. The average cost per cabinet equivalent/rate per square foot, is usually $300 -$400 dollars while the power charges per cabinet now exceed $1500.00. It would be well served by most customers to focus more on power, and the associated cooling charges, and less on the space.
david merrill on 25 Jun 2006 at 8:47 pm
I agree with the lack of focus on cost of power vs. the cost of space, but what I see is that the IT department may be charged for space, but now for power, or vica versa. The most important factor (space or power) really depends on who is paying for what cost element, and who wields the most overall OPEX authority. We may be chasing the wrong cost, but that is a byproduct of who tracks certain OPEX payments and costs.
How can you make the right people aware of the right costs? If power is a higher cost than space, who cares? Who can be made to care?
