“Green” has become the theme of this era, which includes reducing the use of energy and materials at the beginning, improving the efficiency of the use of buildings, extending the service life of buildings, reducing the replacement and waste of accessories, etc. The growth of data centers in the world has been Enabling companies to focus on the efficiency and productivity of the resources used in data storage, transmission and processing.

“Green "has become the theme of today's era, which includes reducing the use of energy and materials at the beginning, improving the efficiency of building use, extending the service life of buildings, reducing the replacement and waste of accessories, etc. The growth of data centers in the world has been Enabling companies to focus on the efficiency and productivity of the resources used in data storage, transmission and processing.

The dramatic increase of Internet applications and the according demands for bandwidth have led to a dramatic expansion of the number, size and density of data centers. Although the data center went through several upgrades, it’s still difficult to keep up with the pace of new media demands. 63% of IT managers said they were unaware of their data center running out of all space, power or cooling capacity. Another 43% of the IT managers believe that based on the current growth rate if the current infrastructure does not change, they at most can be maintained for 6 months. So people do not have to be surprised about- 36% of IT managers are planning or building new data centers.

1. Coping with data center warming

At present, the power consumed in the data center has accounted for 2% of all electricity use in America, which is expected to surge to 9% by 2020. In the consumption of electricity, a large part is to meet the needs of network electronic equipment and building operation. These electronic technologies generate a lot of heat, which is one of the major problems that data center is facing. With the increase of temperature, IT hardware reliability significantly reduced. It is estimated that the long-term reliability of electronic equipment will reduce by 50% for every 10 ° C (18 ° F) increase in temperature.

However, the heat generated by some of the core network electronic devices which the data center operates depending on is the factor that leads to reduced efficiency and longevity. Frequent replacement of accessories has resulted in increased waste from landfills, and also the increased operating costs of data centers. With more and more common use of high-density electronic devices such as blade servers, the cost of a typical server will be lower than the cost of cooling to support its operation.

In order to control air flow, most data centers use cold (electronic) channels and hot (underground cabling and passive cabling) channel mode. In this mode, the addition of cold air and the removal of hot air are well controlled, making the cooling operation more efficient. It is worth noting that the impact of heat on passive cabling (whether it is UTP copper or fiber cable) is less than that on active equipment.

Waste of energy on the heat radiation is equivalent to wasting resources and money. Due to the low efficiency of airflow management, the heat capacity provided by large data centers is up to 270% of the heat capacity required for the equipment. In order to reduce this waste, please follow the following golden rules of the wiring on the thermal management:

◆ using the premise distribution system (PDS) to limit airflow obstruction

◆ reasonable design and management of overhead cable under the floor

◆ high-voltage cable laying under the floor of the cold channel

◆ low-voltage communication cable under the cabinet or directly under the hot channel floor

◆ reducing the number of ceilings, or just placing the ceiling above the active cabinet

2. Structured consideration

Reducing waste can start in many ways. In passive systems, the use of premise distribution will greatly reduce the amount of cable, thus easing the passage congestion and airflow congestion. The greater the space for air flow, the less energy is spent on hot air removal and cold air circulation. Integrated cabling uses trunk cable to lay a large number of fiber optic cables or copper cables to a region, and then divides them into a number of small cables in the electronic equipment area.

The use of trunk cables eliminates the need for disturbing links and completes configurations in the wiring area near electronic equipment. The risk of system’s interruption is very limited and the overall workload is greatly reduced. Therefore, this wiring should be given priority to.

Compared with multiple single and double-core cables, high-core cable also has an advantage that can provide a higher density. The traditional 2.9mm cable for the SC cable connector occupies 7 times the space of the backbone cable, even a cable with a lower density of 1.6mm and with LC connector just occupies twice. In today's trunk cable design, loose tube cable can provide the best density.

3. Current and future system demand

Once the trunk cable is laid in place, it becomes the backbone of the system and will continue to run for many years. Replacement cycle of electronic equipment and software is generally three to five years, the wiring system’s replacement cycle is much longer because it is not easy for the cable to pass and drag the running system. This means that the currently installed cabling system must meet the needs of the future for a long time. Most data centers plan for a 10G transfer rate, and OM3 fiber and 6A copper cabling can achieve this rate at a typical distance from the data center.

For the current data center operated at 10/100 / 1000Mbps, category 6 cabling seems to fit the current needs. However, if you want to consider supporting 10 Gigabit applications in the next three to five years for network upgrades, you should install category 6A cable of a higher bandwidth. This copper cable can provide high-performance transmission, support 10 Gigabit transmission connection for equipment, such as servers and storage facilities.

In addition, it is also important to consider the number of cable cores correctly, and there is no need to lay or delay the laying of new trunk cables each time new applications are applied. 40 / 100Gb / s applications will most likely run on "parallel cable", and the process is very simple, that is, breaking up the high-speed data stream and transmit respectively in multiple fiber cables, sending through the passive system, and finally these signals are recombined.

In the choice of copper and fiber cable, data center designers, in addition to considering the bandwidth provided by cable, but also must take into account the initial investment in electronic equipment and the long-term costs brought about by heat radiation and maintenance, and distribution system suppliers who have a good understanding of copper and cable can help you sort out these issues. The installation of high-quality cabling systems will reduce future waste of material and the troubles and the corresponding costs by fiber cable replacement.

4. Intelligent infrastructure

The size and vitality of today's data centers make us no longer consider only the "fast" system requirements; it must also be manageable and support all kinds of growth and changes. The deployment of intelligent infrastructure management systems will enable IT managers to better understand and control the network so as to make more efficient use of energy, network assets and natural resources. The intelligent infrastructure allows you to know all the available switch ports in the network, so you only need to deploy a minimum number of switches to reduce the overall power consumption of the network.

The use of intelligent infrastructure management systems can make better use of resources, reduce maintenance costs, implement changes faster, reduce downtime, and provide higher service performance levels to increase revenue.

There are many ways to reduce material waste and inefficient use in the data center. Optimizing the passive systems can make a significant contribution to building a green data center, delivering high-performance systems at low cost and creating efficient solutions with long service life.