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The following content is from an older version of this website, and may not display correctly.IBM's Thermal Energy Management Group is rolling out its Mobile Measurement Technology across the EMEA market.
The move is being led out of the company's Dublin campus which has established a Thermal Energy Management Group sales organisation to push MMT across Europe.
Vincent McKey, business development manager at IBM told www.zdtweb.com the system was developed in the company's Watson Research Center in response to customer need for detailed data on cooling that went beyond Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) as part of research into the next generation data center. McKey says CFD doesn't provide the full view of what is happening in the data center and the additional functionality of MMT includes the ability to accurately predict the consequence of given actions. MMT looks at themal energy, density and utilities. "It measures everything from the chiller to the chip," said McKey.
The mobile piece of MMT is a cart that moves around the data center measuring the air temperature and air flow from ground to ceiling level using 12 different senors. The measurement piece is at the software level where algorithms map out the temperature and, says IBM, predict what will happen next, if, for example a computer room air conditioning unit is switched off. "We have formulas to map it. We can then display in 3D and show data center operators what is going on in that center. We show them where power can be decreased and then resurvey after the recommendations have been carried out." In the past if you wanted to change anything in your data center then you had to deal separately with recommendations from the air conditioning unit maker, the UPS maker, the switch maker, the server maker and whoever else sold you the equipment, said McKey. McKey said the important thing was to engage with the facilities, IT and finance.
Strategic actions such as switching off a CRAC unit are carefully weighed with McKey saying that MMT can say exactly what the outcome of such an action would be. "Most data centers are built and then let run. Companies don't want to power down something like and air conditioner or UPS because it has been running seven days a week for eight years and if they do they are afraid that it won't power up again," he said. The system is not a precursor to retro-fitting of the data center but is designed to prolong the life of existing facilities by finding the easy wins that will reduce their power draw. "It is always the first fear of the IT guys. They say, "you are going to rip out everything and I'll have and retrofit my entire data center." IBM can do that for you but that's not what our division is about," said McKey.
MMT was originally announced in May 2007. IBM's view of the next generation data center is that run by an intelligent building management system where power is dynamically served and reduced in response to IT load with waste heat put to use in other parts of the building or beyond.
The move is being led out of the company's Dublin campus which has established a Thermal Energy Management Group sales organisation to push MMT across Europe.
Vincent McKey, business development manager at IBM told www.zdtweb.com the system was developed in the company's Watson Research Center in response to customer need for detailed data on cooling that went beyond Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) as part of research into the next generation data center. McKey says CFD doesn't provide the full view of what is happening in the data center and the additional functionality of MMT includes the ability to accurately predict the consequence of given actions. MMT looks at themal energy, density and utilities. "It measures everything from the chiller to the chip," said McKey.
The mobile piece of MMT is a cart that moves around the data center measuring the air temperature and air flow from ground to ceiling level using 12 different senors. The measurement piece is at the software level where algorithms map out the temperature and, says IBM, predict what will happen next, if, for example a computer room air conditioning unit is switched off. "We have formulas to map it. We can then display in 3D and show data center operators what is going on in that center. We show them where power can be decreased and then resurvey after the recommendations have been carried out." In the past if you wanted to change anything in your data center then you had to deal separately with recommendations from the air conditioning unit maker, the UPS maker, the switch maker, the server maker and whoever else sold you the equipment, said McKey. McKey said the important thing was to engage with the facilities, IT and finance.
Strategic actions such as switching off a CRAC unit are carefully weighed with McKey saying that MMT can say exactly what the outcome of such an action would be. "Most data centers are built and then let run. Companies don't want to power down something like and air conditioner or UPS because it has been running seven days a week for eight years and if they do they are afraid that it won't power up again," he said. The system is not a precursor to retro-fitting of the data center but is designed to prolong the life of existing facilities by finding the easy wins that will reduce their power draw. "It is always the first fear of the IT guys. They say, "you are going to rip out everything and I'll have and retrofit my entire data center." IBM can do that for you but that's not what our division is about," said McKey.
MMT was originally announced in May 2007. IBM's view of the next generation data center is that run by an intelligent building management system where power is dynamically served and reduced in response to IT load with waste heat put to use in other parts of the building or beyond.