For the data centre of the future, one of the decisive factors will be the efficiency of the overall system. Where operators hope to provide cost-effective services, it is imperative to ensure the optimum interaction of software, hardware and the physical IT infrastructure. Consistent measurement of all power consumption values in the data centre is here an urgent prerequisite. Thanks to the cooperation between Rittal and Phoenix Contact, this is for the first time also possible directly at the low-voltage distribution system responsible for the power infeed to the data centre.

In future, the IT infrastructure management software RiZone will be able to record the electrical energy values of a data centre directly at the source, i.e. at the low-voltage distribution system. This breakthrough is one result of the cooperation between Rittal, the leading system supplier for energy-efficient IT infrastructures, and Phoenix Contact, the market leader for electrical connection technology, electronic interface systems and industrial automation.

In addition to the total current consumption at the distribution system, the new solution is also able to determine corresponding values for the individual load circuits, for example the consumption of the cooling systems or the switchgear enclosures, and communicates this information to RiZone. In this way, Rittal has laid a foundation for integrated system optimisation and a more efficient use of energy in the data centre.

The IT infrastructure merges the diverse components and solutions of a data centre into a single system. With the management software RiZone, data centre operators are able to monitor and control the consumption and energy values of the individual infrastructure components, and in this way obtain a simple overview of the degrees of utilisation and efficiency across their system. The latest cooperation has enabled expansion of the RiZone concept with a module for intelligent power distribution, whereby the phase current, phase voltage and power factor for each phase can be recorded and managed through the software. The link-up to the low-voltage distribution system is made via SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), based on a data acquisition solution from Phoenix Contact and an electrical metering facility, the Electrical Energy Management module (EEM).

"The use of SNMP communication permits functional expansion of the Rittal infrastructure solution to include intelligent power distribution. RiZone reads the corresponding values from the managed control system and provides an analysis of these values in diagram form. The tables of individual energy parameters enable conclusions to be drawn on the efficiency of both the data centre as a whole and the separate consumers, e.g. the climate control," says Frank Knafla, senior specialist for energy efficiency at Phoenix Contact, to explain the principle.
The first applications have already been realised, and the results speak for themselves, as Bernd Hanstein, Vice President PM System Solutions at Rittal, adds: "One customer has been able to reduce the PUE value (power utilisation effectiveness) of the data centre from 1.66 to 1.30, which is a really good value. In the area of the cooling alone, we achieved a reduction in energy consumption of up to 50 per cent."