HP Data Centre Design Methodology To Help Customers Save Costs

HP has unveiled an approach to critical facilities design that can increase data centre efficiency and reduce customers’ capital costs by 15 to 25 percent as per company claims. This new offering enables customers facing the challenges of today’s economic climate to cost-effectively invest in building the foundation to thrive in tomorrow’s recovery.

Multi-tiered hybrid design from HP aligns facility design with business priorities. This delivers improved operations and energy efficiency with potential cost savings. The design approach accelerates the adoption of next-generation data centre technologies and services.

When building or redesigning to create multi-tiered data centres, most businesses today operate under the assumption that more availability is always better. As a result, they build entire data centres based on the highest availability required by their most business-critical applications. Consequently, they invest in expensive, unnecessary redundant infrastructure along with specialised mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.

An industry-standard classification system defines tiers I - IV for data centre facilities. Tier IV facilities meet the highest availability requirements. Under HP’s approach to facility design, customers can reduce capital and operating costs by designing data centres with multiple tiers. Each tier matches the availability requirements for a range of business applications. Multi-tiered facilities reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary technology along with redundant power and cooling systems. In addition, the design enables organisations to easily adapt data centre tiers for changing technology needs throughout the life of a facility.

Multi-tiered hybrid design begins with a business impact analysis to evaluate and prioritise applications. The analysis also identifies where redundant technology and infrastructure are required to support business-critical applications. Applications with similar requirements are then grouped into data centre zones – or tiers – designed with appropriate levels of redundancy and scalability.

Building a combined tier II and tier IV facility instead of a facility with a single level IV tier saves an organisation millions of dollars. The HP multi-tiered hybrid design cost analysis tool demonstrates how adjustments in facility design can impact capital costs.