Green pioneers direct current data centre with HP

While Dell is packing big and bad with the news that it has a brand new line up of tiny and powerful Copper servers with ARM technology, HP has not been resting. Instead, its engineers have been working with the biggest IT/communications service providers in Switzerland, to try and save time/money/energy/effort by implementing a DC power system. KitGuru licks a 9v PP3 battery to remember what real juice tastes like.

Green is a colour. It is also a major technology and communication company in Switzerland. With that kind of name, you need a strategy that’s dedicated to ‘doing more with less and leaving less crap behind’.

Green’s CEO, Franz Grueter, has been studying the data and believes he has a solution. With customers implementing around 6 millio0n new servers a year, overall demand for electricity at data centres is increasing by around 10% every year. With that in mind, Franz sent his best scientists off with beer, pizza and Toblerone (eaten THIS WAY, we believe), to brainstorm a way for Green to stay ahead of the curve.

The solution seems to be remarkably simple and obvious.

Instead of moving current back and forth between AC and DC, why not design your data centres to run on a 380 volt DC system – from day one?

According to Franz’s numbers, the resulting saving is huge – “around 20% less power consumption from grid to chip”.

Not only are they cheaper to run, these new breed of DC data centres are actually around 15% cheaper to build. Who knew?

Ron Noblett wasted no time in breaking out the fake tan, Speedos and champagne, “Green was looking for an IT partner that could provide HVDC-enabled IT solutions to meet its specific data-centre needs. At the heart of HP's Converged Infrastructure strategy is our commitment to develop new energy-saving technologies that can lower data-centre capital costs, as well as ongoing operations costs and complexity”. Hmmm, KitGuru so horny when HP man speak.

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KitGuru says: You can't help but wonder what might happen if Dell's Copper division got together with Franz. The companies involved in this project have operations in around 100 countries across the globe, so expect to see a 20%-power-saving-DC-data-centre in a town near you, soon.

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