HP's engineers claim they have demonstrated software in a research setting that significantly lowers power consumption for large data centers.

Their research shows how a new architecture, combined with holistic energy-management techniques, enables organizations to cut total power usage by 30 percent, as well as dependence on grid power and costs by more than 80 percent.

With the HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center research, HP aims to provide businesses the potential to operate data centers using local renewable resources, removing dependencies such as location, energy supply and costs.

The HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center architecture integrates energy and cooling supply from local renewable sources, with a demand-management approach that allows the scheduling of IT workloads based on resource availability and performance requirements.

For example, noncritical, delay-tolerant workloads could be scheduled during daylight hours to coincide with solar supply for data centers equipped with photovoltaic energy generation. In this way, demand can be "shaped" according to resource availability to reduce reliance on nonrenewable resources.

The HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center is based on a management architecture that integrates energy and cooling resources with IT workload planning through four modules:

- Prediction Module: Leverages predictive analytics software to forecast the availability and cost of critical resources, such as renewable energy and IT workload demand.

- Planning Module: Delivers an optimization algorithm that balances workload scheduling with high-level operational goals, such as achieving net-zero energy operation, enabling organizations to schedule workloads based on resource availability, while meeting data-center operational goals.

- Execution Module: Enables organizations to manage workload and energy consumption in real time according to performance requirements and data-center operational objectives.

- Verification and Reporting Module: Identifies and remediates misalignment between the plan and execution, ensuring plan accuracy.

HP will be showcasing the HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center architecture at HP Discover, the company's client event, which takes place June 4-7 in Las Vegas.