Bavaria's Silicon Valley: T-Systems and Intel Join in Research at DataCenter 2020 

Opening in Munich, DataCenter 2020 is where T-Systems and Intel are working on the industrial implementation and automation of ICT services. Their goal: bringing them to market with maximum energy and cost savings. In an initial phase at Euroindustriepark, the two companies are researching how to create the best possible conditions for a green data center. Initial findings will be published this year. They will serve as the basis for ecological improvements to new and existing data centers.

"This project is the first and only one worldwide that is devoted completely to the issue of energy efficiency in data centers," says Olaf Heyden, T-Systems director. "Since the energy consumption of data centers worldwide is on the rise, the analysis will play a key role in minimizing CO2 emissions and lowering costs. And since environmental protection concerns all of us, we will publish the findings of our research online."

Christian Morales, of Intel Corporation underlines, "In a data center, the costs incurred annually for power and cooling can be just as high as investments in IT infrastructure. At DataCenter 2020, T-Systems and Intel will study and analyze the key factors that impact the total costs of a data center. The aim of our joint research is to draft a plan for developing, building and running a 'data center of the future’."

The project will bring T-Systems and Intel important discoveries that they will then implement in their own data centers. One of their aims is to achieve an optimum power usage effectiveness value (PUE) of 1.3 in new data centers. This value is the ratio of the total energy consumed in a data center to pure computer operation. The current PUE values for data centers cooled with recirculated air range between 1.7 and 1.8 on average.

Highlights of DataCenter 2020 include a ceiling height that can be adjusted from 2.50 meters to 3.70 meters and a smoke generator that makes air flows visible. The test environment, roughly 70 meters square, and an equipment room of the same size are located in the T-Systems data center. Intel is providing about 180 servers for the project, while T-Systems, the corporate customer arm of Deutsche Telekom, is supplying the infrastructure necessary to operate them. Roughly 10 employees from each company are analyzing the interaction of various elements in the data center, taking a holistic view of energy considerations - including not only servers but also such elements as recirculating coolers, room size and ceiling heights or water circuits. T-Systems' investment in the project alone amounts to a figure in the single-digit millions.