subject: Heat-Optimized and Chil Plans For Today's Data Center [print this page] Heat-Optimized and Chil Plans For Today's Data Center
Uptime and Data Center Cooling are the most important areas for any Data Center Professionals. Excess heat in an IT room can destroy computer performance, It can cause a premature end of life for servers. Making sure a data center is at the recommended cooling needed is not an easy task. There are many factors that make cooling today's Data Centers a big obstacle.
The rise in the implementation of blade servers and virtual servers has dramatically increased the needed allocation of power consumed per rack, as well as the resulting heat output. Many experts believe that plans for upcoming equipment will require dissipations of 25-45kW in the existing rack space.The trend to increased energy consumption has been documented in several studies.
Traditionally, advances in technology have occurred at an very rapid rate, Moore's Law predicts the doubling of processor performance around every 2 years. As history can attest, increased computational abilities have led to increased power consumption and heat needs. Data Center techs might take these trends into account when planning for future expansion. Gartner Research states, "...data centers will not be able to increase power or cooling in line with increases in data center server deployments.thru end of year 2008, cooling and heat requirements for data servers will prevent 90% of enterprise data centers from achieving their max server density."
Hot Spots are areas in a Data Center that are not properly handled, often resulting in temperatures that exceed recommended conditions for max server performance and reliability. Hot spots are not necessarily caused by a lack of adequate cooling capacity and usually occur in Data Centers with adequate or excess cooling capacity, but is usually caused by poor circulation or poor air flow.
Ways to Improve Cooling in Your Data Center
Data Center managers can take many steps to meet Data Center cooling challenges, including picking the right rack, increasing Data Center energy efficiency, using liquid cooling units, and using environmental monitoring.
Data Center management software can take best advantage of optimizing the data center but texting you emails when thresholds are met. Software can assist you in scheduling out rack and hardware arrangement and can plan ways to optimize layouts based on current and past configuration models. Data center management software can also manage power use and assist in planning on the optimum ways to organize your data center as well as provide suggestions on the best tools and devices to implement for your data center needs.
There are many steps you can use to reduce overall energy consumption and resulting heat in your data center. Think about hiring an expert to conduct room diagnostics, measure airflow, and correct any problems that can be identified. Perform a thorough audit of all equipment to see if any servers can be consolidated or discarded. Clean up clutter around your Data Center floor, that might be arresting air flow.
To fully maximize equipment cooling, when choosing a rack consider intelligent and space saving designs that many rack models feature, including frame profile and capacity for increased packing density. Use blanking panels to maximize flow of air efficiency and use a rack with built in channels for better cable management and better air flow. Fully perforated top panels and doors can help improve ventilation also. Think about server rack accessories that will improve cooling,enclosure blowers, including fans, and rack air conditioners. Consider using energy-efficient PSUs, such as 180V power units, which greatly increases amperage, using smaller circuits and providing a more balanced power load.
These devices allow techs to proactively monitor server room and rack temperature, at any time and from anywhere and give protection to mission critical applications. They also allow techs to continuously watch amp use draw per circuit, leaks of water, and security and can submit alerts wirelessly via SMS/SMTP/SNMP when criteria exceed established thresholds. This allows tech managers to respond fast to any irregularities before they become larger problems. Green monitoring devices also assist administrators in upcoming planning, as they provide needed data to be used for trending analysis.
As power intensive applications and rack densities increase, Water Cooling Packages become a valuable alternative to ambient air cooling and can better meet the cooling goals brought forth by high-density PC clusters. These systematic, high density cooling break throughs utilize water/air heat exchangers to provide uniform, great cooling. Water cooling units use an unique horizontal airflow system with constant temp cold air provided at the first intake and heated air eliminated from the rear of enclosures. They can be setup at the base of the rack. Fully implemented water cooling solutions, have a low cooling output with 3 cooling modules possible per server rack, and controlled variable speed fans and H2O flow based on actual heat from the server that is generated in an enclosure.
