A recent article from AsiaOne.com reported that modern data centers are having problems handling the dense server environment that blade servers provide.  The article mentions that traditional data centers that were built less than five years ago were designed to have a uniform energy distribution of around 2kW to 4kW (kilowatts) per server rack.  With the growth of blade servers being at the highest since the inception eight years ago, today’s data centers are packed with dense blade servers that are now pushing the envelope beyond 12kW, thus putting a huge strain on the design of the data center.  In fact, according to Rakesh Kumar, a Gartner research vice-president, “‘A rack that is 60 per cent filled could have a power draw as high as 12kW.” The article goes on to mention that current data centers may need to be re-designed to handle the future power requirements of blades. Continue reading →