Brocade Data Center Cuts Energy Use by 37%

Posted

Brocade has opened its state-of-the-art data center and engineering labs in a 75,000-square-foot space at its new San Jose headquarters, combining energy efficient and sustainable design elements with technology innovation.

Brocade consolidated three San Jose-area data centers into one 5,000-square-foot facility, which decreases the physical footprint requirement by 30 percent and reduces data center energy consumption by 37 percent, eliminating 4,450 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

The data center incorporates a number of advanced design features that optimize energy efficiency, including hot-row/cold-row configuration and hot-row containment, energy-efficient chillers and cooling towers, high-efficiency motors with variable frequency drives, occupancy-sensing lighting controls, and fully automated controls at the POD level with energy monitoring capabilities. It also features a custom-designed, energy-efficient in-row cooling units with built-in fan redundancy.

The data center has a calculated power usage effectiveness (PUE) metric of 1.3, while comparable data centers of the same size typically have a PUE greater than 1.5.

The Green Grid consortium, together with several global government and industry organizations in the U.S., Europe and Japan, recently agreed on guiding principles for globally accepted data center energy-efficiency metrics using the PUE rating at the center of the industry’s new preferred energy-efficiency metric. Brocade is a member of the Green Grid consortium.

During the process of consolidation, the company decommissioned approximately 133 kilowatts' (kW) worth of equipment, translating to $200,000 in annual savings.

Brocade also increased the electrical density of its racks 21 percent by using more rack unit space and designing new rack elevations, and gained 12 percent more vertical space by designing a flat floor lab rather than a raised floor.

The company also consolidated five R&D engineering lab locations into one R&D Lab. The decommissioning of 400 racks and subsequent re-racking of equipment resulted in an annual savings of $260,000, increased rack power density of up 21 percent, and decreased rack footprint -- down 20 percent.

The overall design of the data center, based on the Brocade NetIron MLX technology, delivers reduced capital outlay and simplified operations, in addition to fewer requirements for space, power and cooling, says the company.

Click here for a video tour of the Brocade data center.

Environment + Energy Leader