A new white paper from APC-Schneider Electric contends that the choice of IT rack power densities has a direct impact on the capital cost of the data center.

The white paper analyzes these costs and presents a flexible architecture to accommodate a well-specified power density for facilities, and discusses the importance of operational policies in enforcing the specification.

The company's analysis suggests that "although numerous industry reports have forecasted rapidly rising IT rack densities, the majority of data centers are still being deployed at average densities of 3-5 kW/rack."

"There are significant savings in developing a data center with an average rack power density of at least 5 kW per rack, however, densities higher than ~15 kW per rack show no further relevant savings," contends the paper's executive summary.

View/Download the white paper.