Predicting Future Power Requirements for the IT Sector: Making the Case for Including Life-Cycle Implications in Design of Servers

Abstract

A recently published article in the Wall Street Journal cited increased power density requirements for servers on the order of 3000 W/sf. While existing datacenter power consumption patterns do not currently suggest such high power densities, emergent high performance servers may in fact require substantial changes to facility design of power and HVAC systems. The paper summarizes research to date on power requirements in datacenters and provide a roadmap for ongoing integrated research