The average rack density (the power consumption of the equipment in a rack) has steadily increased over the last decade. This article explains the reasons for the recent increase of density per rack. Read on to learn what is causing this trend and what steps data centers will have to make to remain competitive. A Steady Rise in Rack Density For years, data centers housed equipment in racks that required 2 to 5kW of power on average. These setups were easy to accommodate with single-phase power and blown-in air for cooling.
However, recent IT advancements are increasing the demand for compute-intensive workloads that require more power. These rapidly evolving technologies include:
These require high processing power, and racks with a higher density than the 2-5kW standard. The Uptime Institute’s analytics and surveys show that:
- 46% of data centers have server rack densities between 5 and 9kW.
- 25% operate within the 1 to 4kW average range.
13% have rack densities between 10 and 19 kW/rack.16% report 20kW or higher averages.10A closer look at the top 16% reveals the following density levels:
- Over 6,000 facilities have an average of 20 to 29kW/rack. Analytics and surveys run by the Uptime Institute report the following split:
- 46% of data centers have server rack densities in the 5 to 9kW range.
- 25% operate within the 1 to 4kW average range.
- 13% have rack densities between 10 and 19 kW/rack.
- 16% report 20kW or higher averages.
- A closer look at the top 16% reveals the following densities:
- Over 6% of facilities have an average of 20 to 29kW/rack.
- 5% operates in the 30-39kW range.
- Just under 5% have 40 kW and higher densities.
As an additional indicator of the trend, over 45% of data centers expect their average rack density to be over 11 kW in the near future.
What is Driving the Rise in Rack Density?
- Data consumption is on the rise as the use of cloud services goes up and new tech gains ground. The demand for compute processing is also growing as companies increasingly rely on power-hungry workloads such as:
- BI reporting and dashboards.
- Custom, ad hoc, and self-service analytics.
- Hybrid operational and analytic processing (real-time advising, real-time operational analytics, etc. ).
- Transactional operational workloads (CRM, ERP, financial transactions, sales order entries, etc. ).
- Data science and discovery.
- AI/ML and advanced analytics.
AI and ML, which are still in their early stages, require a lot of power. AI and ML, which are in their early stages, already demand a lot of power. These systems are high-performance and often tightly coupled with a shared memory pool. The current standard for AI server rack units is 1kW. Racks can contain over 30 units. This means that setups are typically in the 20-40kW range. Similarly, it is not uncommon for HPC deployments to reach the 50kW/rack mark. Alongside AI data-crunching, there is an increase in advanced modeling and data analytics, which is another factor causing the need for higher-density racks. Other drivers of the trend are:
- Power-hungry government and military-grade apps.
- Demand for high-definition videos.
- Augmented and virtual realities.
- Intelligent transportation systems.
- The e-sports industry that requires high-performance and low latency.
- Puyka’s flagship data center in Puyka, AZ provides a high-density design, 100% environment stability, SOC type-2 compliance and HIPAA-ready colocation services.
- IT Equipment is Also Pushing Rack Density Up
In response to the rising appetite for processing capacity, manufacturers are boosting the power of chips.
In the early to mid-2010s, mainstream server processors used under 100W, while dual-processor servers consumed about 200W at full load. Nowadays, Intel server chips (which are in more than 90% of server processors) go past the 200W barrier and bring the total average server consumption close to 500W.
Specialized chips are becoming even more power-hungry due to complex analytics and multimedia elements. The new types of chips must support capabilities such as:
- High parallelism (with potentially thousands of cores operating at the same time).
- Solving memory bandwidth problems to process large amounts of data (typically achieved by running a high number of operations in close proximity).
- Variable precision (using different quantities of digits in calculations).
- These accelerator chips include graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable grid arrays (FPGAs), and custom application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). These components use more energy per chip than standard CPUs. For example, a GPU card can now draw about 300W, so each setup with three cards per rack unit draws as much as 1kW/rack unit.
- A Challenge for Legacy Data Centers
Besides the increase in power-hungry processes, modern data centers are also accelerating the move towards higher rack density. Colocation providers see the trend as an opportunity to optimize resources as raising the density bar allows a data center to:
- Maximize the use of cooling by having more computing power in each cabinet.
- Free up square footage for other equipment (or reduce the overall size of the data center).
- Combine virtual machines onto fewer dedicated servers and reduce the number of necessary cabinets and pieces of equipment.
- Expand vertically instead of horizontally (up instead of out) and facilitate more users in the same space they already possess.
- While some data centers embrace the change, some facilities will be under pressure to improve cooling and deploy new technologies. Some data centers may offer higher density during the transition period as an additional service. This strategy will help balance out the costs and get some extra time to remodel the equipment.
- Read about data center security and learn what measures colocation providers deploy to ensure their facilities remain safe.
Key Business Planning Takeaways
Current rack density averages do not suggest an immediate need for technical overhauls, but data centers should prepare for evolving consumer demands. Here are the key factors to consider during business planning:
Customer expectations are changing. High density per rack is becoming a more important consideration in data center design. Businesses will need more energy per rack as AI/ML systems work best when they are close together. This trend, along with the increase in the use of accelerator chips, will make the shift towards higher density racks a natural choice when updating equipment.
Standard air-cooling systems (heat sinks and fans) cannot efficiently control the temperature of the latest chips or large numbers of racks with AI/ML workloads. Direct liquid cooling (DLC), which can cool up to 100kW per cabinet, will allow facilities to house newer chips in a more efficient manner. Racks will become heavier as the number of equipment is stacked.
Cloud providers will have to adapt their operating strategies to deal with higher-density requirements.
Some enterprises will no longer be able to support the required densities in an on-premises data center. There will be a rise in colocation hosting as setting up equipment in a third-party provider’s facility becomes an even more sensible decision.
- Our article on colocation pricing explains how facilities calculate prices and helps better understand your data center bills.
- Average Rack Density Is Going Nowhere but Up
- We expect rack densities to keep rising as data centers look to meet new customer demands.
- The change will not happen overnight, but the industry is currently evolving in ways that favor higher-density racks. The industry is evolving in a way that favors higher-density racks.
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