APC announced APC TradeOff Tools™, new Web-based applications designed for use in the early stages of datacentre concept and design development. By enabling datacentre professionals to experiment with various scenarios regarding virtualization, efficiency, power sizing, capital costs, and other key design issues, APC TradeOff Tools break down major datacentre planning decisions into a series of smaller, more manageable decisions. Use of these tools helps validate, through modelling, the overall design of a datacentre.

"Customers need to make many key decisions during any datacentre project, and they do not always have the necessary information to guide them,” said Carl Cottuli, vice president of APC’s Data Center Science Center. “Many of their concerns are not addressed by configuration tools because they occur early in the concept selection process. With the introduction of APC’s TradeOff Tools, when a roadblock arises, the data centre decision maker can easily find a tool to deal with their specific issue, get a quick answer, and continue on in the concept selection process.”

The seven tools are currently include:

Carbon Calculator

Illustrates how changes to a datacentre’s location, efficiency, and power load can impact carbon dioxide emissions and the electric bill. This provides management with a general indication of how “green” their datacentre is today and how “green” it could be.

Energy Efficiency Calculator

Profiles a datacentre and calculates the resulting efficiency and electrical cost based on datacentre characteristics. Users can then understand the impact each key datacentre decision has on the datacentre’s efficiency.

Capital Cost Calculator

Identifies key datacentre physical infrastructure parameters and calculates capital costs based on those parameters. This allows datacentre users to judge how changes to datacentre location, IT load, and cooling and power infrastructure can impact overall capital costs.

Virtualization Energy Cost Calculator

Comprehends IT and physical infrastructure characteristics and calculates energy savings resulting from the virtualization of servers. This allows the user to test the impact of virtualization and various physical infrastructure improvements on their datacentre floor space and on their energy consumption.

Power Sizing Calculator

Defines basic characteristics of the IT load and calculates how much utility input power would be required to support such a load. This provides users with a general idea of how much power in kilowatts they will need to run their datacentre.

InRow™ Containment Selector

Generates a prototype rack and row cooling configuration based on the user’s preferences and the physical constraints of the room. This provides the user with their optimal InRow cooling containment configuration.

AC vs. DC Calculator

Compares four different AC and DC power distribution architectures and calculates their respective efficiencies. This allows the user to make an educated decision on the optimal architecture for their datacentre.

APC’s Data Center Science Center (DCSC) designed the APC TradeOff Tools. The DCSC team of engineers and analysts researches datacentre issues and helps develop design and learning tools that assist datacentre professionals in managing their datacentres.

• APC