Preprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Preprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.24 2012 Issue 01 | dell.com/powersolutions

Gear up with intelligent data center infrastructure

In the Virtual Era, enterprises are turning to IT as

a vehicle to help increase growth, agility, and

innovation—achievable in great part through

heightened efficiency. For example, demand

for services provided by the data center continues

to rise at a rapid rate, given the intensified reliance

on business-critical applications and the explosion

of social media, text messaging, video streaming,

and rich-media content. Data center density is

increasing to meet this demand.

Introducing additional computing capacity into

the data center brings a corresponding rise in heat

density and the energy required to power and cool

the server environment. Without technologies to

monitor and manage power consumption and

energy efficiency, data center energy costs may

rise unabated. Worldwide, data center power

consumption has increased by roughly 56 percent

from 2005 to 2010,1 and electric utilities are hard-

pressed to keep up with this surge in demand.

Changing the power management game

As additional hardware deployments begin to

bump up against a data center’s power capacity, it

Effective power management in today’s data centers is an IT priority.

Dell OpenManage™ Power Center, Dell iDRAC7 Enterprise, and

Intel® Node Manager combine to provide scalable, policy-based

power management at server, rack, row, and room levels.

By Roger Foreman

Boosting data center efficiency through flexible power management

1 “Growth in data center electricity use 2005 to 2010,” by Jonathan Koomey, Analytics Press, August 1, 2011, analyticspress.com/datacenters.html.

Raising the bar

Accurate, timely information on power consumption enables data center operators to identify areas where they can gain power usage efficiencies. Learn how Dell power management tools help manage power use and improve rack density.

qrs.ly/ql1owkh

Preprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Preprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. dell.com/powersolutions | 2012 Issue 01 25

becomes increasingly important to manage

the individual power-consuming elements

within the data center. Because networking

and storage consume a relatively small

portion of the overall power budget, the

critical starting point is power consumption

of servers and the power distribution chain

to the servers, which may account for

roughly 30 to 40 percent of the total energy

used in data centers.2

To help identify ongoing steps toward

achieving optimal energy efficiency and

sustainability, data center operators can

assess their facilities’ current performance

using the Data Center Maturity Model

developed by The Green Grid consortium.

The organization offers a variety of

documents, Webcasts, and other sources of

information about the model.3

As data center operators move beyond

assessment, they may discover that many

approaches to power management have

significant limitations. Some approaches offer

limited server power capping. Others

offer a handful of policies to support

dynamic power capping. Still others

simply report events and require manual

intervention. Operators need scalable,

policy-based power management that

combines openness and interoperability

with tight integration and optimization.

Part of the Dell OpenManage family

of systems management products, the

Dell OpenManage Power Center console

works with Intel Node Manager to provide

IT with innovative tools to help control

energy efficiency within the data center.4

(For more information about Intel Node

Manager, see the sidebar, “Enhancing

energy efficiency through server-level

monitoring and limiting.”) Dell OpenManage

Power Center is an open, standards-based

2 “Energy efficient IT and infrastructure for data centres and server rooms,” by PrimeEnergyIT Project consortium, July 2011, qrs.ly/hi1p6sn.

3 For more information, see the white paper “Data Center Maturity Model,” The Green Grid, February 2011, qrs.ly/bp1p6wb.

4 To download Dell OpenManage Power Center, visit www.dell.com/powercenter.

Enhancing energy efficiency through server-level monitoring and limiting Intel Node Manager is power management firmware that Dell

has embedded in its 12th-generation servers. The Integrated

Dell Remote Access Controller 7 (iDRAC7) Enterprise option

uses Intel Node Manager to monitor and dynamically cap

power consumption.

Dell OpenManage Power Center leverages embedded Intel

Data Center Manager (DCM) technology to aggregate the

thermal and power measurements from iDRAC7, supported

power distribution units, and uninterruptible power supplies.

This aggregation enables data center operators to monitor

and manage servers in physical groups, including racks,

rows, and rooms, as well as logical groups such as e-mail,

file, and print servers. Dell OpenManage PowerCenter can

define and apply power capping policies across servers with

iDRAC7 in those groups.

The following use case scenarios describe how Dell

OpenManage Power Center and Intel Node Manager deliver key

capabilities for power management and control.

Increasing server count through provisioning

based on actual or limited power

To enable this example scenario, Intel Node Manager provides

power reporting and capping capabilities.

• IT initially deploys 10 servers to a 5 kW rack based on a server

nameplate power value of 500 W.

• Using Intel Node Manager reporting, IT finds that the actual

server power draw is 400 W.

• IT uses Intel Node Manager to characterize the effect of power

policies of less than 400 W and determines that a 350 W limit

negligibly impacts performance.

• IT uses Dell OpenManage Power Center to set the 350 W power

limit, which is enforced by Intel Node Manager.

• Fourteen servers with power limited to 350 W are deployed to

the same rack.

This approach enables IT to provision 40 percent more servers in

the rack at a 12.5 percent improvement in efficiency.

Maximizing server productivity during a chiller outage

Automatic, dynamic power limiting by Intel Node Manager makes

the difference in this example scenario.

• A data center operator sends a policy to servers to limit power

when the inlet temperature threshold is exceeded.

• A data center chiller outage drives ambient data center

temperature above the threshold.

• Intel Node Manager enforces the power policy limit on servers

by reducing processor and memory power.

• The data center chiller issue is resolved and ambient temperature

returns to normal.

• Intel Node Manager automatically removes the power limit, and

servers return to normal operating state.

This approach enables IT to maximize server productivity and

protect server assets throughout the incident.

26 2012 Issue 01 | dell.com/powersolutions

Gear up with intelligent data center infrastructure

Preprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Preprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

tool that delivers real-time information on

power usage and inlet temperature along

with policy-based power management of

physical or user-defined logical groups.

Specifically designed for Dell™

PowerEdge™ servers equipped with the

Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 7

(iDRAC7) Enterprise option, Dell OpenManage

Power Center aggregates the server-level power

capping and power and temperature

monitoring capabilities of Intel Node Manager.

It enables operators to take control over

power consumption at server, rack, row,

and room levels—helping to improve power

efficiency, cut total power usage, and provide

accurate intelligence for decision making.

Using Dell OpenManage Power Center,

data center operators can implement a

dynamic policy that delivers power to

servers—based on priority, while staying within

the overall cap. If a rack is reaching the power

limit, power will be diverted from low-priority

servers to high-priority servers to maintain

their service levels.

By streamlining the management

process, Dell OpenManage Power Center

helps save administrative time and costs.

Having one tool to view power and

thermal data at the server, rack, row, and

room levels helps simplify analysis. IT can

easily generate reports and orchestrate

emergency power control actions from a

single management console. Additionally,

automated tools and response mechanisms

are designed to replace time-consuming

manual intervention.

Advancing data center maturity levels

The combination of Intel Node Manager

and Dell OpenManage Power Center

delivers value at each level of The Green

Grid Data Center Maturity Model, as

organizations advance their data center

management capabilities over time.

Level 1: Implementing best practices

At a basic level of data center maturity,

servers are often missing physical power-

sensor instrumentation and are operating

with power management capabilities turned

off. Dell OpenManage Power Center is

designed to collect and aggregate power

measurements from 12th-generation

PowerEdge servers as well as metered

power distribution units from Dell and

other vendors (see Figure 1). Monitoring

the power data often reveals patterns that

were previously unknown about individual

or group server use. IT can begin to allocate

power to efficiently meet these needs.

Levels 2 and 3: Progressing toward

future capabilities

Facilities at intermediate data center

maturity levels are deploying power control,

decommissioning old servers, and virtualizing

and consolidating existing hardware. Dell

OpenManage Power Center supports

this phase by providing historical power

consumption patterns by rack. With the

knowledge gained about utilization patterns,

operators can deploy dynamic power control

policies to help ensure that servers stay at

a given power budget level. Data center

operators can define multiple nested policies

that customize an action, such as notify or

limit, based on power or thermal thresholds.

Levels 4 and 5: Achieving data

center innovation

At the highest levels of data center maturity,

IT is likely to require very specific control

on characterized workloads. With Dell

OpenManage Power Center, multiple policy

control mechanisms can be used to allocate

workloads to specific hardware footprints

to optimize workload performance. Using

power data inputs helps data center

operators to determine the most efficient

target platforms on which to deploy the

workloads, in part by avoiding hotspots and

targeting spare data center capacity.

Accelerating improvements

in power control

Improving the efficiency and use of data

center resources has become a top IT priority,

given fully populated racks and high utility bills.

Automated management of server density and

power consumption is achievable in the data

center using Dell OpenManage Power Center.

Working together, Dell OpenManage

Power Center and Intel Node Manager

provide visibility into the power

consumption of Dell PowerEdge servers,

enabling IT organizations to effectively

control power usage and energy efficiency

throughout the data center. These tools

help operators balance facility power

budgets to maintain data centers at a

high level of operating efficiency—even as

demand for IT services increases.

Author

Roger Foreman is a senior product manager

on the Dell OpenManage Marketing team with

responsibilities for Dell OpenManage Power

Center and blade server management, including

Chassis Management Controller (CMC) firmware.

Learn more

Dell OpenManage Power Center:

www.dell.com/powercenter

Data center power management

with Intel Node Manager:

intel.com/technology/nodemanager

Figure 1. Dell OpenManage Power Center presents a view of server groups and associated power consumption