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Data Center Design Right Sizing,

and New Build Avoidance

Troy Tazbaz

Oracle RE&F

October 2013

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Agenda

• Business Validation & Justification of New

Capacity

• What’s right-sizing?

• Financial impact of right sizing – both on Capex

and Opex

• Stranded Capacity: Can you use it?

• Sustainability & Efficiency

• Conclusion

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Summary

Data center requirements,

based on IT utilization

efficiency

1.Validating business

requirements

2.Right sizing opportunities

3.New build avoidance by

audit and recovery of

existing space and

capacities

Land Dependent on Location

Building Core

& Shell ($/ft²)

$300

Turner, Brill, Cost model: Dollars per kW plus Dollars per

Square Foot of Computer Floor, 2010. White Paper

available at http://uptimeinstitute.com/resources

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Why is business validation important?

• Financial savings

• Efficiency in design & operation

• Sustainable practices

Industry has high focus on efficiency. But what is

efficiency?

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Validating Business Requirements & Right Sizing

Criticality Location

Higher tiered electrical

design?

Location criteria

UPS + Generator? Cost of utilities

Is there an uptime

requirement?

Climate condition factors

Utility incentive rebates

What are the impacts of

an outage?

Labor Market

What do you validate for?

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Validating Business Requirements & Right Sizing

Density Space

Per rack density

validation

Can you use existing

space?

Cost impact between

design densities

Can you use stranded

capacity?

Have you benchmarked

your existing footprints

Tech refresh and

consolidation

What do you validate for?

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Cost Savings through Right Sizing

Example using the Uptime Institute Cost Model:

Business requirement for 500 racks per 8kW rack

average, with UPS+Generator backed Tier III design.

Density (kW) Total Racks

Total Power (kW) Tier II Tier III

8 500 4000 $ 50,000,000 $ 100,000,000

6 500 3000 $ 37,500,000 $ 75,000,000

Capex Model:

Tier I $11,500

Tier II $12,500

Tier III $25,000

Tier IV $28,000

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Cost Savings through Right Sizing

Opex Model: Assumption if we chose a Tier II design with a

block/Index utility agreement was negotiated with kWh cost

locked in for 80% of the capacity and the rest 20% at

indexed rates. The cost of kWh at $0.12.

We reached utilization at 2.7MW

Block Power Index Power Draw

Average Density (kW)

Operating Cost Stranded $ 10 year Loss

Annual Cost (3MW) $2,488,320 $622,080 90% 5.4 $2,799,360 $311,040 $3,110,400 Annual Cost (4MW) $3,317,760 $829,440 68% 5.4 $2,799,360 $1,347,840 $13,478,400

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Cost Savings through Right Sizing

What’s your actual $/kW?

Block Power Index Power Draw

Average Density (kW)

Operating Cost Stranded $ 10 year Loss Actual $/kW

Annual Cost (3MW) $2,488,320 $622,080 90% 5.4 $2,799,360 $311,040 $3,110,400 $13,889 Annual Cost (4MW) $3,317,760 $829,440 68% 5.4 $2,799,360 $1,347,840 $13,478,400 $18,519

We reached utilization at 2.7MW

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Stranded Capacity

• Avoiding misuse of space (Density). POD that

was designed to 10-12kW per rack density that’s

currently operating at 2kW. The stranded capital

expense of this example using Tier II pricing model

noted in the Uptime Table of $12.5k per 1kW, would

put this row at $1.25M over-spent capital.

Solution: Benches were removed from this lab, and

we recovered 60 grid (300kW) locations for an M&A

consolidation without any investment.

• Recovering under utilized space (New footprint &

Criticality). Audits discovered stranded capacity that

helped avoid the build out of 400kW of new capacity

requirement.

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Sustainability & Efficiency

Target Current

Capacity

Utilizati

on

Target

Capacity

$/kW

MEP

Investme

nt

Upgrade

Site 1 512kW 80kW 2,951kW Under

$3K/kW

invest

Upgrade cooling and

power. Take advantage of

available electrical

infrastructure.

Site 2 250kW 50kW 500kW Under

$1K/kW

Match power to cooling .

Available electrical

infrastructure

Site 3 233kW 0kW 233kW Under

$1k/kW

Leverage unused MEP

capacity

Site 4 280kW 70kW 280kW Under

$1k/kW

Consolidation/cleanup of a

couple of labs

Totals 1,275 kW 200kW 3,923kW

• The following table illustrates business requirements (new data center) for future

growth that were satisfied using existing capacities (Location and criticality)_

The greenest and

most efficient data

center is the one

that you did not

build.

• Build out of an additional 2.65MW of capacity for less than 90% cost of building

new space, based on Uptime Institute cost model

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Conclusion

Sustainability & Efficiency

Business Requirements

Requirement Validation

Inventory Management

Design Decision & Efficiency

• Design to average densities

• Design to actual draw densities and

not nameplate values

• Create relevant KPIs for measurement

and reporting

• Review the KPIs and leverage the

metrics for decision making

• Require business justification behind

technical requirements

• Implement a chargeback model

• Create ROI models that supplement as

a decision making tool for cost saving

potentials over the life of the equipment

• Include efficiency measure from the

beginning and not as an afterthought as

part of the requirement

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THANK YOU