Each trendy information heart, whether or not within the fingers of the hyperscalers or the enterprise, should reimagine the way in which energy is managed and backed up as a part of a broader innovation technique.
The AI period is poised to reshape the information heart panorama. Companies of each dimension are searching for methods to leverage generative AI. Meaning they’re going to want extra information facilities – ones which might be greater performing, safer, and extra environment friendly.
The hyperscalers are those setting expectations for contemporary information facilities. They’ve the sources to pursue greenfield alternatives, constructing new infrastructure with the very best expertise the market has to supply.
However that does not imply enterprises need to accept much less. With the correct applied sciences that optimize using actual property, it is doable to retrofit a smaller-scale information heart for the AI period. This implies cautious consideration of compute infrastructure to energy AI functions, new approaches to rack configurations, cooling applied sciences, and information storage.
It additionally means strategically an information heart’s energy backup programs to make sure a balanced energy technique for brownfield retrofit. Each information wants backup energy, nevertheless it’s seemingly your present energy gear is hogging ground house – with out including a dime of income. New expertise improvements like nickel-zinc (NiZn) batteries provide extra density in energy backup, doubtlessly ramping backup capability whereas releasing up beneficial ground house for elevated productiveness.
Centralized or Distributed Backup Energy
To grasp the size of change occurring, think about the numbers. McKinsey forecasts that information heart demand will grow by about 10% a year until 2030. By then, demand will attain a complete of 35 GW within the US market alone.
Because it stands, information heart clients are consuming up extra actual property than information facilities can help. For each hyperscalers constructing new information facilities and enterprises making upgrades, one reply is to drive up density delivering extra compute per sq. foot. It is no shock, then, that even main cloud service suppliers are involved with the quantity of actual property their backup energy programs are claiming from income-producing property.
Sometimes, information facilities have centralized uninterruptible energy provide (UPS) backup programs. On the planet of hyperscalers, there is a transfer towards distributed backup programs – server rack battery backup models (BBUs).
Non-profits such because the Open Compute Venture are pushing new requirements that take this distributed strategy to backup energy. Whereas it is an strategy that has a number of benefits for hyperscalers, it is much less optimum for colocation amenities or the enterprise. It is because colocation amenities must accommodate totally different tenant configurations, making it much less possible. In the meantime, a decentralized strategy could be overkill for enterprise-grade workloads.
There’s additionally in-server backup energy, which ensures the server shuts down correctly within the occasion of an outage.
These backup programs will be complementary to 1 one other, or not. The secret is to search out the correct mixture to make sure your power-hungry AI workloads can maintain operating. Many trendy information heart retrofits contain modular infrastructure, giving present amenities the flexibleness so as to add what gear they want, in an iterative trend and a constrained house.
The Transfer Away From Lead-Acid
Sadly, the lead-acid batteries which have supported information facilities for many years are inefficient and hogging beneficial actual property. Additionally they have a restricted working temperature vary, requiring much more house for cooling expertise.
Lead-acid batteries are comparatively low cost on the outset, however extra trendy battery applied sciences are definitely worth the funding. Lithium-ion batteries hit the market lower than a decade in the past, however they already account for a large share of the market in new information heart development. They’re extra environment friendly – thus taking on much less beneficial ground house – and do not have to get replaced as typically as lead-acid.
Nickel-zinc battery expertise will not be risky like each lead-acid and lithium-ion. In actual fact, it has no thermal runaway and may function at a wider temperature vary than both competing battery chemistry. Whereas lithium-ion batteries provide excessive vitality density, nickel-zinc batters ship excessive energy density – that means it has the next energy discharge fee. In a backup state of affairs, when the only objective is to run a battery for wherever from 15 to 5 minutes or much less, you need a small battery that may rapidly discharge a considerable amount of energy.
Compatibility With Older Tools
Whereas hyperscalers have the posh of beginning contemporary, the enterprise cannot ignore the incumbent gear populating its information facilities. Up till the introduction of lithium-ion, lead-acid batteries have been in each information heart.
Using the identical UPS charging system, information heart operators can extra simply retrofit nickel-zinc batteries with present UPS gear through drop-in replacements.
In the meantime, changing lead-acid batteries with nickel-zinc could also be simpler than buying new lithium batteries, because of the extra safeguards that lithium batteries require. The risky chemistry of lithium creates extra prices round venting, high-capacity hearth suppression, enhanced room burn scores, and different security options that are not mandatory for nickel-zinc batteries.
The underside line is that each one companies, of each dimension, might want to modernize their information heart technique to sustain with the promise of AI. The chance to easily construct new information facilities would not all the time exist, however the correct retrofitting technique will give the enterprise the transformative energy it wants.
Tod Higinbotham is COO of ZincFive.
