didn't someone tell me that telco equipment had 40vdc racks once?

[Phil Thayer]

To me this seems like overkill for what can be nearly accomplished with
240V 3-phase power.  Most enterprise class systems have the option to be
delivered with 240V 3-phase which is about as close to DC as you can get
on the AC side but doesn't require the conversion and consequently the
heat generated by the conversion that requires additional cooling.

If there is a desire to be more green in a computer room then it should
start with the actual computers themselves.  Most computers run constant
speed fans that are consuming a large amounts of electricity when it is
not needed.  If a CPU and other components of a system are not being
used then they do not need to be cooled as much.  If a disk drive is not
being accessed as much then it doesn't need to be cooled.  Integration
of the cooling with the monitoring of the systems usage to reduce the
cost of cooling systems is the direction that should be taken.

Then there is the whole idea of having large numbers of servers sitting
in a computer room with each server consuming electricity while they are
being utilized at an average of 20%.  I still don't understand how a
company can look at a computer room full of pizza box servers running at
20% utilization and feel that they are getting their monies worth.
Consolidation of servers into either blade enclosures that are running
some kind of a virtualization  software platform or larger servers that
allow multiple layers of consolidation is the biggest bang for the Green
dollar there is.  There are companies who have cut their computer room
costs by millions of dollars per year by consolidating hundreds of
servers down to tens of servers.

The cost involved with AC to DC conversion of computer rooms would be
unrealistic in most facilities where tremendous cost savings can be
obtained by simply changing to newer technology.

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kclug-bounces at kclug.org 
> [mailto:kclug-bounces at kclug.org] On Behalf Of David Nicol
> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 8:23 PM
> To: kclug
> Subject: didn't someone tell me that telco equipment had 
> 40vdc racks once?
> 
> I've been suggesting this kind of thing for years
> 
> http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9835281-54.html?part=dtx&tag=nl.e433
> 
> 
> -- 
> Looking back, I realize that my path
> to software as a career began at the
> age of seven, when someone taught
> me to count in binary on my fingers.
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