Barclays Adopts HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling

Barclays said today that it will adopt HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling to reduce energy consumption in a major new data center in Gloucester, England. The big UK bank will become the first company in Europe to use Dynamic Smart Cooling, a comprehensive cooling solution that incorporates airflow analysis, instrumentation and a management server to monitor and manage cooling in a data center.

The announcement builds on an existing relationship in which Barclays has worked with technologies from HP (HP) to reduce data center energy consumption by as much as 40 percent in some facilities. Barclays says Dynamic Smart Cooling is part of a package of energy savings measures that will trim energy usage in its 28,000 square foot Gloucester data center by 13 percent.

Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC) is designed to provide precise management of air-conditioning systems in response to changes in server temperatures. Real-time monitoring allows data center managers to use a higher set point for cooling systems, which in turn saves energy through reduced use of chillers and computer room air conditioner (CRAC) units. Data center managers can save 4 percent in energy costs for every degree of upward change in the set point.

The DSC system deploys sensors throughout the data center, which communicate with the AC systems. The "smart" piece is the system's use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to understand the flow of air within the data center and route the cold air to the hot server. HP says the approach can cut cooling costs by 20 to 45 percent as it turns AC systems on or off as temperatures rise and fall.

"Efficient energy management is at the heart of our technology infrastructure, and we are investing to use the best technology available," said Marcus Agius, chairman, Barclays Group. "We are proud to be one of the first companies in Europe to implement HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling technology."

Barclays (BARC) is one of the largest financial services companies in the world, with 27 million customers and 134,000 employees.