Next Generation Data Centre ICT Infrastructures. Harry Forbes CTO NCS

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1 Next Generation Data Centre ICT Infrastructures Harry Forbes CTO NCS White Paper Nexans Cabling Solutions July 2010

2 Next Generation Data Centre ICT Infrastructures Harry Forbes CTO NCS Executive Summary In addition to server consolidation and virtualisation, recent trends towards Service Orientated Architectures (SOAs), Web 2.0 applications and cluster computing are accelerating the implementation of unified network fabrics in order to cope with the higher I/O throughput and greater bandwidth needed to deliver these services. The impact has significantly increased the complexity of ICT systems, which is further compounded by having three predominant networking standards (Ethernet, Fibre Channel and Infiniband) to administer, manage and maintain. All of which is driving up costs, increasing the risk of failure and consuming more power as applications become more bandwidth intensive, which in turn drives up server processor utilisation. To further compound these problems; businesses are under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint, especially in countries where legislation is already in place. Although server consolidation and virtualisation helps to reduce power consumption, the deployment of blade servers can have an adverse effect with uneven distribution of server rack power leading to hotspots and higher power consumption for cooling. Because data centres are planned and designed with longevity in mind to cope with future business growth and expansion, it is inevitable that energy consumption will increase year on year. There is therefore a need to identify energy trends and usage in the data centre and take further action to stem the acceleration of energy growth as businesses expand. This paper examines new and emerging ICT technology infrastructures and how their adoption can reduce spiralling energy usage. Introduction As data centres roll out more virtualised servers; especially blade servers and server clusters for HPC, problems can start to arise with hotspots and servers overheating potentially leading to device failures. Sometimes these problems only appear after time when new applications are installed which demand a higher number of MIPS (millions of instructions per second) resulting in an increase in processor power output. In a number of cases however it can be down to a number of high energy servers in the same or adjacent racks. Deploying servers in such a fashion can lead to a to an unbalance of server row power and cooling where a few racks need tens of kilowatts of cooling whilst others only require a few kilowatts. This makes it harder to control the cooling required to each rack and leads to power and cooling inefficiencies resulting in energy being wasted. More often than not however, the cause can be put down to not having enough raw data that shows where the power usage and trends are occurring down to rack and device level. In order to implement

3 corrective actions or improvements it becomes essential to have real time data and therefore measure power usage at the device level. New and Emerging Technologies Although it is prudent to take the necessary steps to resolve power and cooling problems which may arise with legacy equipment, future plans should take into account new and emerging technologies which offer the best balance between system performance and optimum power utilisation. Energy Efficient Ethernet The Energy Efficient Ethernet IEEE802.3az Task Force is working on new energy saving initiatives to lower energy consumption even further. By using the transceiver as a listening device for traffic, it can power down the network port when the device is sitting idle, which in turn enables the use of Wake-on- LAN (WoL) so it can power down the entire device until the transceiver receives a magic packet so it can reboot the system. Since servers can still consume as much as 70% of their full power rating when sitting idle this represents significant energy and cost savings. Data Centre Ethernet New IEEE Ethernet standards have been ratified which truly position Ethernet as a major contender to Fibre Channel and Infiniband. These new standards are designed to enhance Ethernet s I/O throughput, reduce latency, eliminate bottlenecks and speed up data throughput. The new Fibre Channel over Ethernet standard consolidates the I/O port combining LAN, storage and HPC traffic. This also can reduce power consumption as fewer network ports are sitting idle and the utilisation rate of the consolidated port is increased. Existing 10GBase-T Features Recent advancements in 2 nd generation transceiver silicon have resulted in power levels dropping as low as 3.5w per port with OEMs still claiming even greater improvements. The IEEE802.3an standard enables this power level to be scaled back even further as cable distances are reduced below 100m. This puts 10GBase-T on the map with high density switching and server adaptors and OEMs are now shipping 1 st release products. Using a higher grade cabling such as Nexans CAT7A product LANmark7A can extend the reach of the cabling system by 8 server racks over a CAT6A system with the transceiver powered down to its minimum level. LANmark7A also provides the opportunity for future improvements to the PHY design by eliminating a large proportion of noise cancellers redcuing cost and power consumption even further. End-User Benefits

4 The bandwidth and reach of 10GBase-T and future higher speed standards provides flexibility to the system infrastructure making it easier to adapt to change, and deliver the required quality of service more cost effectively over other technologies. The 100m reach of 10GBase-T provides the flexibility to disperse high energy servers throughout the data centre providing an opportunity to balance out power loading and cooling, driving higher energy efficiency. Significant cost savings can be made using 10Gbase-T for storage. A Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter can cost as much as 25% more than the device it is connecting to. The greater throughput of 10G Ethernet can also drive further cost savings. Consolidation of multiple 1Gps Ethernet up-links on blade servers into a 10GBase-T link will drive down energy consumption and costs. Energy Efficient Ethernet will drive energy consumption and costs down as power is better utilised, managed and made available on a need by need basis. A homogeneous unified network fabric will reduce hardware design complexity, power utilisation and cost. Ethernets plug and play features will ease administration overheads and enable faster administration and maintenance. Ethernet preserves investment through its backward compatibility with legacy systems and offers a roadmap and migration path for next generation systems. Nexans LANmark 6A/7/7A solutions are ideally positioned to support a migration to higher speeds on a unified network fabric whilst providing backward compatibility with previous standards. Nexans EMAC (Environmental Monitoring Access Control) solutions provide the ability to measure, manage and control energy utilisation and environmental conditions with real time data. Conclusion A holistic approach to solving ICT and energy problems is what is required since both are inter-related and dependent upon each other. The advancements in system performance and efficient power utilisation and management, provide High Speed Ethernet solutions with an ability to deliver a high QoS at low cost while stemming the utilisation of energy in a controlled and manageable fashion. A homogeneous unified network fabric would provide better control and management over physically separate disparate networks, reducing power consumption and administration overheads. The ubiquity of Ethernet provides a migration path for future products whilst preserving existing investment in legacy products. This is no good however without the energy management tools such as EMAC and a high grade cabling infrastructure such as LANmark to support it.

5 A cabling infrastructure that can scale up and down the performance stack, offer the highest QoS, reliability and robustness; and at the same time deliver energy savings is the only way to move forward with new ICT infrastructures. The Nexans LANmark 6A and 7 range is designed with this in mind and offers the highest performance at competitive costs.