HP Unveils Architecture For First Net Zero Energy Datacentre

HP has unveiled research from HP Labs, the company’s central research arm, that illustrates the architecture for a datacentre that requires no net energy from traditional power grids.

The research shows how the architecture, combined with holistic energy-management techniques, enables organisations to cut total power usage by 30 percent, as well as dependence on grid power and costs by more than 80 percent.

With the HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center research, HP aims to provide businesses and societies around the world the potential to operate datacentres using local renewable resources, removing dependencies such as location, energy supply and costs. This opens up the possibility of introducing IT services to organisations of all sizes.

“Information technology has the power to be an equaliser across societies globally, but the cost of IT services, and by extension the cost of energy, is prohibitive and inhibits widespread adoption,” said Cullen Bash, Distinguished Technologist, HP, and Interim Director, Sustainable Ecosystems Research Group, HP Labs. “The HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center not only aims to minimise the environmental impact of computing, but also has a goal of reducing energy costs associated with datacentre operations to extend the reach of IT accessibility globally.”

The HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center architecture integrates energy and cooling supply from local renewable sources, with a novel demand-management approach that allows the scheduling of IT workloads based on resource availability and performance requirements.

The architecture for net-zero energy The HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center is based on an innovative management architecture that integrates energy and cooling resources with IT workload planning through four modules:

Prediction Module: Leverages powerful predictive analytics software to forecast the availability and cost of critical resources, such as renewable energy and IT workload demand.

Planning Module: Delivers an optimisation algorithm that balances workload scheduling with high-level operational goals, such as achieving net-zero energy operation, enabling organisations to schedule workloads based on resource availability, while meeting datacentre operational goals.

Execution Module: Enables organisations to manage workload and energy consumption in real time according to performance requirements and datacentre operational objectives.

Verification and Reporting Module: Identifies and remediates misalignment between the plan and execution, ensuring plan accuracy.