Power and cooling costs are escalating. What data warehouse options can improve data center efficiency?

Netezza data warehouse appliances were developed with data center efficiency in mind. In one appliance rack, over 100 intelligent storage nodes provide MPP performance by attaching a CPU to each drive. Yet each node consumes less than 30 watts, so the power and cooling requirements for a full-rack system are about 4,000 watts and 12,000 BTU/hour. Compare this with alternative systems, including blade servers, which can consume as much as 600 watts per blade. A rack of 32 blades would require over 19,000 watts and 64,000 BTU/hour of cooling. The efficient design of an architecturally integrated data warehouse appliance offers an excellent solution to address escalating power and cooling costs.

Analyst Viewpoint

Energy efficiency is fast becoming a key consideration for data warehousing and IT as a whole. In fact, by a 417-4 vote in July 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation urging IT managers to “give high priority to energy efficiency” when purchasing servers. The good news is that suppliers of data warehouse appliances and conventional servers are making significant strides in engineering energy-efficient systems. Data warehouse administrators will find a number of intriguing options in the marketplace. And with energy prices increasing and fuel supplies dwindling, a transition toward “eco-responsible computing” can reduce energy costs by thousands or even millions of dollars a year for large organizations.