White Paper

consuming less energy. The ability to use Common Slot Power Supplies across multiple platforms

simplifies maintenance and reduces inventory. All HP Common Slot AC Power Supplies meet 80

PLUS

Silver, Gold, or Platinum specifications. The AC power supplies work with input voltages from

100 to 240 V, making them functional worldwide. Administrators can use the HP Power Advisor

utility at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/power/index.html to select the right

power supply for each server’s configuration. Read the ―HP Common Slot Power Supply technology‖

white paper at http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA3-2676ENW.pdf for more

information.

HP Power Regulator

HP Power Regulator is an OS-independent power management feature included on all HP ProLiant

servers (200-series and above). Power Regulator directly monitors processor utilization and uses this

information to adjust the processor performance state (frequency and voltage). This gives processors

full power when they need it and reduces power when they do not. Read the ―Power Regulator for

ProLiant servers‖ technology brief at

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00300430/c00300430.pdf for

more information.

Optimized fan power

ProLiant ML, DL, and BL G6 and G7 servers include a ―sea of thermal sensors‖ located throughout the

server, including components such as DDR3 DIMMs and hard drives. The number of sensors varies by

server platform. The server uses the sensors to construct an accurate view of its internal thermal

profile. The server’s iLO management controller uses a sophisticated control algorithm to set the speed

for each internal fan based on the server’s thermal profile. This improved monitoring technology

prevents overcooling within the server, lets the fans consume less power, and produces less acoustical

noise.

HP engineers designed Active Cool fan technology for HP BladeSystem c-Class Enclosures. Active

Cool 200 fans are ducted (the fan is longer than it is wide) to generate high-volume, high-pressure

airflow with low acoustical noise levels. HP Active Cool 200 fans use minimal power; they can cool

16 server blades using as little as 150 watts of power.

Power monitoring and reporting tools

ProLiant servers include tools that measure and report their power use to HP Insight Control so that

you can react faster and smarter to unexpected changes and track long-term trends. When a server

boots, it runs its components at full power for a few seconds to measure the maximum power use for

its configuration. The server’s iLO device reports this Calibrated Max Power to Insight Control. Also,

ProLiant servers monitor and report their peak and average power use to their iLO controller. The iLO

device collects this power usage information every 5 minutes. Administrators can view the peak and

average power usage over the previous 20 minutes or 24 hours through the local iLO interface

through Insight Control.

Power control tools

Our provisioning tools—Dynamic Power Capping and HP Enclosure Dynamic Power Capping—

reduce the uncertainty normally involved in determining worst-case power requirements for servers.

This helps administrators maximize data center power utilization by fitting more IT equipment in the

available space and power and cooling capacity. These tools are summarized below. For a more

detailed description, read the ―HP Power Capping and HP Dynamic Power Capping for ProLiant

servers‖ technology brief.