White Paper

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Introduction
Updating a traditional data center or building a completely new one requires substantial capital expense (CAPEX) and
months to a year or more of planning and construction. Even when finished, the facility may require high operational
expense (OPEX) and may not achieve adequate power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating. A PUE of 2.0 to 2.4 is considered
very good for traditional data centers but is difficult to achieve.
That’s why we’ve developed the HP Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD) 240a. The HP POD 240a is a complete data
facility that can be operational in a matter of weeks after placing your order.
This paper describes the HP POD 240a and explains how it can achieve a PUE as low as a near-perfect 1.05 while meeting
your performance and serviceability goals.
HP POD 240a
The pace of change in IT equipment (ITE) technology is quickening to the point that it’s difficult for existing data facilities
to keep up. Traditional data center design is based on estimates of total ITE inventory, ITE power consumption, and the
amount of cooling required. Data center facilities administrators commonly populate one-half to two-thirds of each
rack, leaving the extra space for ITE expansion. However, recent IT technology trends—high-density server systems,
virtual machines, and converged networks—make it difficult and costly for facilities to adapt.
The HP Performance Optimized Datacenter 240a is a modular, scalable solution for data center deployment and
expandability. The HP POD 240a (Figure 1) provides an intelligent, energy-aware environment that optimizes compute
space to maximize facility capacity and reduce energy costs.
Figure 1: This illustration shows a complete HP POD 240a.