The London Olympics is set to put immense pressure on the
National Grid.
UK datacentre managers are concerned that there will not be
enough power to support datacentres in the South East, warns
Gartner research director, Rakesh Kumar. "In London, Gartner
clients are worried about potential power outages," he says.
UK businesses are more exposed than ever before as older power
stations are decommissioned. Power required by the London Olympics
may push the grid to breaking point.
Unless there is investment in new power stations, the UK may
risk power cuts. A report from
Capgemini has found that the UK
risks major power outages. Electricity output has fallen by 2.2% to
its lowest level in 10 years - placing the UK at risk of power
shortages in the near future unless more stations are built.
Alistair Green, executive consultant at Capgemini believes there
will be sufficient power only if power companies continue to invest
in new power stations, but he says, "They will only build new power
stations on the basis they can get their money back." The economic
climate may make it harder for the power companies to justify the
expenditure now.
Datacentres will inevitably have to run more efficiently,
whatever happens on the UK National Grid. The EU has recently
published a
best practice guide to help datacentre managers improve energy
efficiency.
Tony Day, a global director at datacentre equipment provider
APC, who was a technical consultant on the Code of Conduct, says,
"The code of conduct will require changes to the way datacentresare
run."
The EU Best Practices Code of Conduct for datacentresrecommends
that datacentre managers run their data facilities at the lowest
level of IT resilience needed to support the business, because the
more resilience built-in, the greater the power usage.
The EU also suggests that IT managers buy software based on the
estimated energy usage of the product, and implement storage
policies that take into account the cost of keeping data online in
disc arrays. Datacentre should operate at the highest temperature
possible, between 17-27 degrees Celsius to reduce the need for
extra cooling.