Data Center Martial Arts Showdown Sumo vs. Aikido

Data centers have historically been beasts of excess.

To maximize reliability, availability, and security, data centers have been designed and built with a "sizable" degree of redundancy, size, and impenetrability. Moreover, while these methods are relatively effective, they are also expensive, inefficient, and, some would even say, wasteful.

Sumo wrestling, while not represented at the Olympics, is a martial art practiced professionally in Japan. It is also notorious for its massive barrier to entry as well as it's requirements of enormous mass and religious discipline to achieve top performance - not that dissimilar to the practice of financing, construction, and operation of many legacy data centers. I think you see where we are going with this. ;-)

Aikido, on the other hand, might be referred to as the Japanese martial art with a conscious. Translated as "the way of unifying with life energy" Aikido is the art of self-defense without harming the attacker. Techniques are more focused on preservation of resources, balance, and relaxation rather than size and brute force. For that reason, Aikido can be effectively employed by just about anyone regardless of age, size, or strength.

Cooling Data Centers Can be Gluttonous

Aside from the energy used to power the server processors, cooling is by far the most gluttonous excess of the data center. As of 2015, cooling represents roughly 40% of the energy consumed in data centers worldwide. That’s an amount nearly equal to the server processor, fans, and power supplies combined. Some would say that this is primarily a function of less than optimal capacity planning in an environment where advances in technology happen too quickly for facilities to keep pace. In other words, real estate doesn’t follow Moore’s Law. True, but we'll save that for another article.

This waste of energy and resources is spawning a growing market for more responsible and efficient methods of cooling. In fact, the global green/energy efficient data center market is expected to triple over the next four years (from $75 Billion to $225 Billion by 2022).

Recent Advancements and Their Limitations

Many of the efficient data center cooling technologies of late (i.e., annualized PUE <1.20), while notable, lack universal practicality due to a combination of cost, risk, and operating factors. For example, liquid immersion cooling can yield PUE’s as close to perfection as some would argue you can get (less than 1.10 in most cases). However, its application is limited to a small subset of applications.

The world's largest data center users (Software, Cloud, and Social Media) often employ a combination of free outside air and direct evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling (direct or indirect) in general, while effective in yielding great efficiency, can place excessive strain on local water resources, and in many cases, adds unacceptable business risk (i.e., no water = no evaporative cooling = no operation). While we've made massive progress on the sustainability front, there is still significant room to improve in areas of standardization, risk reduction, and greater adoption among data center developers, operators, and users. 

The Fundamental Difference Between Cooling Technology and Cooling People

The first corporate data center was likely in a corporate office building, and from a conceptual perspective, we’ve adopted the same cooling methods (at least up until recently). We force volumes of cold air to all the places where "people" work or move to keep their environment comfortable. However, while people are mobile, the technology infrastructure in a data center primarily sits in the same place for most of its useful life.

So what characteristics would an ideal data center cooling solution possess?

• A solution that works regardless of geography or application 
• One that is harmonious with technology, users, the environment and the business 
• One that is effective across a greater life cycle

1. It Would be Flexible

Data center cooling designs are governed by many factors including geographic location, desired power density, availability, and cost. If you plan to build one or two facilities, this may not present much of a concern. However, when you are developing and maintaining a global data center portfolio, "flexible" standardization becomes a more critical design criterion. 

Aikido-Like heat rejection is not only efficient; it's ubiquitous producing annualized PUE's of 1.15 or better anywhere in the world. It's also intelligent, employing water responsibly for economization, but is also capable of running “water-less” without significant PUE penalties, thereby minimizing or eliminating water-related business risk. It continuously optimizes the use of water and electricity in harmony with the local geography or can be tuned to a specific client-defined requirement within a multi-tenant/multi-application environment (i.e., HPC, AI, Mainframe, Cloud, and Web Hosting).

2. It Would be Portable

Cooling that’s tightly integrated with the underlying real estate, such as that employed in a raised floor, shared plenum environment is static, expensive, and encumbering. It limits the capability to support variable operating scenarios and is often difficult to upgrade or replace without significant risk and disruption to operations.

Real estate doesn’t follow Moore’s Law

Aikido-Like heat rejection is portable and hot-swappable. It is not encumbered by the underlying real estate. Each environment can be tuned to support the specific needs of the infrastructure and application thereby accommodating a multiple SLA's within the same room or facility. Furthermore, it can re-purposed or upgraded without significant operational disruption.

3. It would be Affordable

When we think – efficiency and portability – we often envision containerized or pre-fabricated “modular” data centers. While these solutions are very efficient if populated and configured within a narrow range of design parameters, any efficiency advantage obtained is often overcome by their actual cost and inflexibility in mixed density or multi-tenant environments.

Aikido-Like heat rejection is cost-effective even in small increments yet scales rapidly in a just-in-time fashion to support growth, variability, and complexity.

4. It would be Adaptive

Traditional solutions have limited efficiency at lower system loads, and as a result, trade-offs are made that mean significant compromises in flexibility, cost, and performance. Whether you are a cloud provider, enterprise, or IT outsourcer, most will agree that workloads and applications are increasing in complexity and variability.

Aikido-Like heat rejection is adaptive and self-optimizing across a wide variety of load profiles, operating conditions, and mixed density environments, thereby enabling a greater useful life. 

The Aikido Lifestyle is More Sustainable

For obvious reasons, I'd pose that Yokozuna (the highest-ranking Sumo wrestlers) likely lead a less sustainable existence than Shihan. As our economy evolves into a more “digital” economy, data centers will be ever more present as a component of that shift. The way we build and operate data centers is also shifting - especially in the area of cooling. It’s nice to see advancements in play to enhance their environmental and economic sustainability. Greater ubiquity and adoption are the next steps toward greater harmony.