How to Calculate Data Center Cooling Requirements

July 16, 2012 By

Electrical equipments when operated over long hours produce heat, which must be removed to prevent the equipment from getting damaged. Sizing a cooling system requires an understanding of the amount of heat produced by the equipment contained along with the heat produced by the other heat sources.

The total heat output of a system is the sum of the heat outputs of the individual components. The complete system includes the UPS, Power Distribution, Air Conditioning Units, Lighting, and People. Fortunately, the heat output rates of these devices can be easily determined through simple and standardized rules.

The heat output of UPS and Power Distribution systems consists of a fixed loss and a loss proportional to operating power. Heat generated by lighting and people can also be readily estimated using standard values. The only information needed to determine the cooling load for the complete system are a few readily available values, such as the floor area in square feet, and the rated electrical system power.

A quick estimate using simple rules gives results that are within the typical margin of error of the more complicated analysis. The quick estimate also has the advantage that it can be performed by anyone without specialized knowledge or training.

The prior analysis ignores sources of environmental heat such as sunlight through windows and heat conducted in from outside walls. Many small data centers and do not have walls or windows to the outside, so there is no error resulting from this assumption. However, for large data centers with walls or a roof exposed to the outdoors, additional heat enters the data center which must be removed by the air conditioning system.

If the data center room is located within the confines of an air-conditioned facility, the other heat sources may be ignored. If the data center has significant wall or ceiling exposure to the outside, then a HVAC consultant will need to assess the maximum thermal load and it must be added to the thermal requirement of the complete system determined in the previous section.

The determination of cooling requirements for IT systems can be reduced to a simple process that can be done by anyone without special training. Expressing all measures of power and cooling in Watts simplifies the process.

For larger data centers, the cooling requirements alone are typically not sufficient to select an air conditioner. Typically, the effects of other heat sources such as walls and roof, along with recirculation, are significant and must be examined for a particular installation. The design of the air handling duct work or raised floor has a significant effect on the overall system performance, and also greatly affects the uniformity of temperature within the data center. The adoption of simple, standardized and modular air distribution system architecture, combined with the simple heat load estimation method could significantly reduce the engineering requirements for data center design.

 

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Data Center Cooling, Data Center Design, Data Center Management Tagged With: , ,

Evaporative Cooling in Data Centers

July 11, 2012 By

The concept of evaporative cooling is a very primitive technique which has been passed on ancestrally. The principle of this technique is very simple; it uses water to cool the inflowing air. Generally in a refrigeration cycle, the exchange of heat occurs at the evaporator. The working fluid absorbs heat at the evaporator and changes its state from liquid to vapor and then releases the heat absorbed when it comes in contact with refrigerant like ammonia to change its state from vapor to liquid in the condenser. Here generally the working fluid comes in contact with refrigerant which has a very low melting point.

To decipher this thermodynamic cycle in a more simplistic sense, evaporative cooling is very much similar to the air coolers used in modern days where a fan blows air through layers of wet sheets and the air temperature is reduced due to the heat transfer between water and air. Water absorbs the heat in the air and vaporizes and cooled air is the end product.

Data centers generate a large amount of heat, since they work round the clock. Since conventional air conditioning systems increase the power consumed by data centers on a whole. To cut down costs companies look at alternative cooling systems which reduce the overall expenses incurred in maintaining an efficient cooling system.

Evaporative cooling is a widely employed cost reduction cooling system across data centers that provide an economical as well as thermally stable temperature control system.

Though evaporative cooling has been commercially used in homes and offices for sometime now, their implementation across data centers was very recent. Considering the large amount of heat generated evaporative coolers provide a reliable and economical alternative source of supplementary cooling systems to the pre-installed air conditioning systems.

The thermal analysis of evaporative coolers reveals that they have a higher efficiency in pure engineering terms, but the major drawback of the system is the effect of cooling cannot be up scaled that easily. For providing an efficient cooling system it is necessary for a plant engineer to decide the tonnage of air conditioning required. But in case of evaporative coolers the tonnage of cooling cannot be accurately predicted as it involves a number of variables. In case of evaporative coolers the temperature of the ambient air at inlet plays a major role in deciding the overall cooling effect. Incase the ambient air is at a high temperature, the overall cooling is significantly low.

This unpredictable factor in the system, where it cannot provide a continuous pre-calculated cooling effect has confined evaporative coolers to just being subsidiary cooling systems. Besides this the system also extensively depends on water. The water used in these systems must be at the freezing point or well below the ambient temperature to achieve efficient cooling. This raises the need for a cooling system to maintain the water for the evaporative coolers below the ambient temperature which significantly increases the cost in maintaining the data centers in all.

With data centers eating into the majority of IT expenses, it has forced them to abandon evaporative cooling systems as a prospective solution and concentrate on greener and efficient systems.

Threshold environment conditions in a data center

Environmental factors influence the operation of data centers to great extent. Industrial design primarily concentrates on human safety and equipment ergonomics. Ergonomics is a science in itself which defines the structured guidelines for setting up safe operating layout for the human machine interface. The color codes for instance followed in factories and industries are self explanatory of the precautions that the employees must take while operating them.

Since it’s not possible to describe the hazards of operating certain machine equipments, this necessitates the need for developing a safe and systematic approach to provide safe working atmosphere.

Providing a sustainable environment to operate not only increases the efficiency of hardware components but also gives the employees a self satisfaction, since safety is their primary goal at work.

Thermal factors such as temperature, humidity, pressure play a significant role in the design of data centers. Though their optimal conditions vary depending on the size of the plants and equipments, their influence on environment factors describe the very essentials of the threshold limits for environmental standards. Monitoring them plays a critical role in maintaining a unified safe operating environment. There are software’s that constantly monitor the threshold limits and by installing electronic sensors factors like temperature and humidity can be easily controlled.

Recommended Computer Room Humidity

Relative humidity (RH) is defined as the amount of moisture in the air at a given temperature in relation to the maximum amount of moisture the air can hold at the same temperature. In a data center, maintaining ambient relative humidity levels between 45% and 55% is recommended for optimal performance and reliability.

When relative humidity levels are too high, water condensation can occur which results in hardware corrosion and early system and component failure. If the relative humidity is too low, computer equipment becomes susceptible to electrostatic discharge (ESD) which can cause damage to sensitive components. When monitoring the relative humidity in the data center, it is recommended early warning alerts at 40% and 60% relative humidity, with critical alerts at 30% and 70% relative humidity. It is important to remember that the relative humidity is directly related to the current temperature, so monitoring temperature and humidity together is critical. As the value of IT equipment increases, the risk and associated costs can increase exponentially.

Environmental and Energy thresholds are both incredibly important factors in the smooth operation of any data center. Operating data centers above the set threshold limits can not only damage the hardware but increase the maintenance costs and overall expenses incurred.

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Data Center Cooling, Data Center Management Tagged With: , ,

C7 Data Centers Add a New Member to their Growing Client List

June 20, 2012 By

C7 data centers who are the Intermountain West’s largest suppliers of advanced IT and data center outsourcing services, recently announced that they have added AlphaGraphics as their newest client. AlphaGraphics is known as the world leader in print and marketing communications.

AlphaGraphics offers a host of services which include print, visual communications and marketing products and solutions, including full-service digital, offset and large format printing; design services; mailing and one-to-one marketing services; promotional products and digital archiving.

“C7′s scalable and robust colocation services are mission critical to our continued safe and reliable operations,” said Jason Kol, Vice President Business Technology, AlphaGraphics. “We looked at several data center outsourcing candidates in the region; it soon became clear that C7 delivers the high level of service and redundancy required to support our expanding global operations.”

“We had to ensure that our corporate and franchisee data was in good hands and always accessible. When we combined C7′s ability to guarantee this access with its local presence and knowledgeable support personnel, our colocation partner decision was really quite easy,” Kol continued. “We’re excited about our new relationship, which we view as a long-term partnership.”

It is reported that C7 will be offering its services from the Linden data center to AlphaGraphics. Its services will include a full suite of colocation services and 24×7 support, continuous network connectivity, cooling and power that are all backed with Service Level Agreement (SLA) guarantees.

“AlphaGraphics can fully depend on our services and our commitment,” said C7 Data Centers President and CEO, Wes Swenson. “We continually strive for the highest levels of consistency and performance, both hallmarks of AlphaGraphics’ service offerings. C7′s data center outsourcing solutions will enable AlphaGraphics to focus on the business offerings it provides to its expanding base of franchisees.”

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Data Center Cooling, Data Center Design, Data Center Solutions, Featured News, Hosting / Colocation, Networking / Security, News Tagged With: , ,

“Think Green” for Your Data Center

June 18, 2012 By

In the recent times, every one everywhere is going green. The term itself has become a trend. People are concerned about the climate change and are paying a keen attention to its “shiver sent down the spine“type of repercussions. Recycling, reducing pollution and supporting renewable energy are now being given order importance. Businesses too, are advertising their green practices and products. Organizations are seeking efficient, energy solutions for their data centers to reduce downtime, and increase output. Take a look at the few practices listed below  which will help you extend the life of datacenters while deferring new build-out costs.

See those equipments? Look closely:

As we all know, the equipments of the data center gulp down the majority of the power that is supplied to the data center. You would want to start your green trend here. Change any hardware which looks like it’s on the last term of its life cycle. Now, if you cannot replace them due to lack of resources, ensure that they are properly maintained. Doing so makes a noticeable impact on the overall energy use.

Point to be considered is that, these IT equipments come with thermostatic fan control, ensuring that these fans have a clear path to the machine, will keep the temperature in control and enhance the operation efficiency.

Keeping  the intake grills clean and making sure that accessories like cable management arms, in-rack PDUs are not blocking any exhaust ports will ensure optimum operation of the data center.

What’s in the AC Vents?

Data centers need heavy duty cooling equipments to maintain optimum temperature levels. Usually the air flow path is through the air conditioning equipments to the equipments and back to the AC equipment.

Sometimes, airflow might not follow that path. The air from the outlet might return to input which would in turn reduce the cooling efficiency and considerably decrease the AC’s capacity. Recirculation (hot air from the IT equipments might find its way to the AC inlet) is another possibility.

Managing airflow by keeping the hot and the cold air away from each other can aid the cost savings on cooling requirements effectively. Start by blocking any unused space around the racks so that there is not hot air leakage from the back of the rack to the front of it .Organizing the racks in the hot aisle/cold aisle will do the trick.

The unobstructed return of the hot air to the air conditioning equipment is every bit as important as the delivery of cold air. IT equipment rows should be located such that perimeter air conditioning equipment is centered at the end of hot aisles. If there are more hot aisles than air conditioners, placing empty, blanked racks at the end of the row nearest the air conditioner is an effective way to keep the hot air directed properly without affecting operating equipment. In many cases, the air can be further isolated with simple plastic curtains, ensuring that only cold air is supplied to the equipment and equally important, the hot air has a clear path back to the air conditioning equipment.

It’s a data center, not cold storage:

Now we know that the temperature in the data center has to be relatively cold, but it really shouldn’t feel like your blood is freezing over once you step into one. Overcooling is one of the many reasons why the data centers do not perform as efficiently as it should be. Maintain the temperature as per your equipment’s need. All major equipment manufacturers support the temperature range recommended by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) which has an upper limit of 77° F. This temperature range provides a good operation margin and considerable energy savings.

Chart the Data Center’s growth:

 Estimating various parameters like when and how you are planning to upgrade the data center will help you gain valuable insights on computing needs. Implementing a CFD model will help you estimate and predict various cooling related issues. Also examining the load on each server can result in accurate estimation of cost and energy savings.

Use Your PUE/DCIE

Power usage effectiveness helps one express the energy efficiency of their data center. Knowing your PUE will enable you to set goals and track efficiency of your data center. Once the value is known, you can modify and upgrade the system for power saving and cost effective solutions.

Bottom line is a well designed, organized data center will ensure that your business runs like a well-oiled machine. It will help you reduce the capital expenditure and delay the need of a complete replacement of the equipments. An effective data center is also environmentally feasible way to manage your operations.

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum.

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Articles, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Power, Green IT Tagged With: , ,

Data Center Cooling: Why is it Crucial?

June 18, 2012 By

Data centers house more than just servers; they house routers that help the servers communicate with each other. They consist of backup systems to ensure business continuity and data security. They also power the servers through many power distributions systems that are also placed within the data center itself. Not to mention the batteries and UPSs in the battery room.

To run a data center is not a child’s play. It is a highly complex system which needs to be in top notch working condition all the time. This is because if the data center fails to perform, you are bound to lose a lot of precious data and in turn, business and money.

Data centers need constant, uninterrupted power supply and air conditioning. Since data centers draw power continuously, they have a tendency to get heated up. Temperature rise in a data center beyond a certain pre-determined threshold can prove to be disastrous for the data center as it could lead to fire hazards and even explosions in some cases. It’s, thus, an important point to note that without the air conditioning, a data center can’t sustain; it is of utmost importance.

The cooling infrastructure of a data center is an organisation on its own. It includes chillers, compressors and air handlers. Together, these create an ideal computing environment and prolong the data center’s lifespan.

The cooling system:

Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRAC) — This is a refrigerant based cooling system, which is installed within the data center and is connected to external condensing units. This circulates air through a fan-system thus delivering cool air to the servers.

Computer Room Air Handler (CRAH) –This is a chiller based cooling system, which is installed on the data center floor and is connected to an external chiller plant. This too follows the fan system for delivering cool air to the servers.

In order to replace water that is lost during cooling of the equipment room, humidifiers are placed within the CRAC/CRAH.

Computer Room Air Conditioners/Air Handlers are a staple of data center design. They provide precise temperature and humidity control in the data centers. By maintaining 24x7x365 operation, CRACs provide recurrent heat exchange. It accepts heat energy generated by the IT equipment, cools it, and returns it back to the equipment.

Each data center has their own version of the cooling system because, at the end of the day, cooling requirements depend upon the nature of the data center. The systems are installed by taking various factors into consideration, such as room layout, installation densities and the location of the data center.

Let’s look at some cooling strategies which can improve the cooling systems of the data centers.

Choose wisely

While selecting server racks, make sure they have space efficient features and have the capacity to increase the packing density. Accessories like perforated doors, blanking panels etc improve the air flow efficiency in the data center.

Be Green

Getting an analysis done on power consumption, airflow types of equipments, efficiency of the servers etc will help you get a better look at your data center options and save up to 30% of your power. This can stabilise the temperature of the data center.

Understand your cooling needs

Using a basic cooling system for a high cluster network doesn’t make sense. Before investing in a cooling system for your data center, do your research and understand the type of cooling that will be suitable for your environment. Deploying liquid cooling units to the high cluster network prove to be efficient. They are temperature neutral and have a modular design. This will ensure uniform, effective cooling.

Monitor the environment around you

Set up devices which will give you constant readings on server room temperature, hot spots and will provide protection to mission critical applications. Doing so will allow the IT manager to respond quickly to any irregularities. These also provide data for the future equipment analysis.

After understanding the necessity of the cooling systems, many industries are now warming up to the improved cooling systems and are working towards improving them with new technologies and making them efficient.

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum.

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Data Center Cooling Tagged With: , , , ,

Telect’s New C degree Flow Manages Data Center Rack Temperature Effectively

June 4, 2012 By

The industry is raving about an efficient energy management tool aptly called the Telect’s new C degree Flow. This tool is an innovative capital saving solution for managing data center rack temperatures, thereby increasing efficiency.

“The C degree Flow™ strip is a simple solution to the complex problem of data center cooling,” says Paul Knight, Vice President of Product Development. ”We invented the plastic with data center best practices in mind. Not only can inlet temperatures of racks be seen, but temperatures across a rack can be increased by knowing where the cold air is going. Ultimately, increasing hot aisle temperatures results in increased cooling efficiencies and greater equipment capacities.”

This tool enables the technical personnel to easily evaluate the data center temperatures and quickly provide solution in case of inconsistencies.

Stephen Baker, Telect’s Communications and Brand Manager, adds, “The C degree Flow™ strip is indicative of Telect’s mission to simplify networks. The strip is simple to install and simple to use.”

Telect headquarters is located in Liberty Lake, Washington. It connects clients and businesses and provides them with unique copper, enclosures, fiber, power, racks, and services Telect believes in delivering focused and strategic plans to simplify networks and network components giving the clients the best service experience in the industry.

Data Center Talk updates its resources every day. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Data Center Cooling, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Solutions, Data Center Tools, Featured News, News Tagged With: , ,

Calculating Data Center Cooling Requirements

May 28, 2012 By

Most electrical equipments generate heat. This must be taken care of, to prevent the equipment temperature from increasing to an intolerable level. For the most part of IT equipment and other equipment existent in a data center is air-cooled. Setting up a cooling system requires a considerate amount of understanding of the amount of heat produced by the equipment. This article explains how to estimate heat output from IT equipment and other devices in a data center such as UPS, for purposes of sizing air conditioning systems, lighting, and power backup.

With the implementation of scalable “pay as you use” uninterruptible power supply (UPS) design, it’s getting simpler to set up these systems.  As the needs of the data center grow they allow the data center manager to plainly add modules.  On the other hand, it is effortless to lose sight of the future electrical needs of the data center or data room inside a well-built provision. The power requests of the various elements may vary to a large extent from each other.  However, using simple rules it can be accurately calculated using the power requirements of the premeditated IT loads along with calculating the size of the electrical service, these elements can be used to calculate approximately the power output ability of a standby generator system. This can be done only if it is requested for the data center loads.

This article discusses some of the concerns to be taken into consideration in calculating the data center cooling requirements.

 Determining electrical power output of the system:

Data centers are sometimes a part of a building.  The steps in shaping the electrical capacity will lend a hand in calculating the requirements for that portion of the building devoted to the data center room.  The dissimilarity between the steady state power and the peak power is significant to determine power capacity requirements of data center. The total heat output of a system is the sum of the heat outputs of the components. The complete system consists of IT equipment, along with other equipments like UPS, Power Distribution, Air Conditioning Units, Lighting, and People involved. Luckily, the heat output rates of these equipments can be effortlessly calculated through simple means.

The heat produced by UPS and Power Distribution systems is steady across equipment brands and models and so they can be approximated without significant error. Lighting and people can also be easily calculated by means of standard values. Some of the parameters required to determine the cooling load for the complete system are easily obtainable values. They include the floor area in square feet, and the charged electrical system power.   Air conditioning divisions create a considerable amount of heat from fans and compressors. This heat is bushed out to the outside and does not generate a thermal load within the data center. However detract from the competence of the air conditioning system and is usually credited when the air conditioner is sized.

 Other heat producing equipments:

Natural heat such as sunlight through windows and heat conducted in from outside walls must also be taken into consideration. Most small data centers and network rooms lack walls or windows. On the other hand, for large data centers with walls or a roof out in the open to the outdoors, the extra heat that goes inside the data center must be removed by the air conditioning system. In case the data center has important wall or ceiling coverage to the outside in that case heating, Ventilation, an Air Conditioning adviser must pitch in. He will examine the utmost thermal stack and this should be added to the thermal requisite of the absolute system.

 Size of air conditioner:

Only after the cooling requirements are determined, it is feasible to size an air conditioning system. Some of the factors stated below must be taken into consideration for the sizing of the cooling load of the equipment. This also includes electrical power equipments. Some of them are:

  • The volume of the cooling load in the building
  • Excess sizing for upcoming requirements
  • Excess sizing to report for humidification impacts
  • Excess sizing that would  generate redundancy

The Watt loads of each of these issues can be summed up to establish the total thermal load in data center

Data Center Talk updates its resources every day. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.
Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Articles, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Design, Data Center Management, Data Center Solutions Tagged With: ,

Air Economizers Fundamentals

May 24, 2012 By

An air-economizer is ideal for a situation where cooling can be optimized without using an air conditioning system, thereby significantly reducing the energy expenditures from cooling by more than 60 percent. The goal of an air-side economizer is to cool the data center servers by taking advantage of the cool outside air.

This involves a phenomenon of mechanical cooling, depending on the source, which is estimated to consume around 33% – 40% of a facility’s incoming electricity. The outside air is brought into the building at regular intervals and distributed through a set of dampers and fans, to maintain the balance of natural air inside the data center. The servers, intake the cool air, transfer heat, and eject hot air into the room. The hot air generated by the data servers is sent out through an exhaust. If the outside air is cold, the economizer will mix the inlet and exhaust air, ensuring the resulting air cools down to the set temperature, and is recirculated at an optimal temperature for the working conditions.

The air-side economizer is normally integrated into a central air handling system with ducts for intake and exhaust of air. The setup comprises of filters to reduce the amount of infiltrating particulate matter or contaminants into the data center space. Because the data centers must be cooled 24/7, 365 days per year, the economizers even make sense in hot climates, where they can take advantage of cooler evenings or winter air temperatures.

In dry climate conditions, the controls should include redundant outdoor air humidity sensors to stop economization when the absolute humidity is too low. This will prevent unnecessary large, and expensive, humidification loads on very dry cold days.

Using a cold aisle / hot aisle partition-defined arrangement would considerably increase economizer savings, and in some cases creates a de facto heat exhaust which will save energy even when outside air temperatures are greater than 80 F. In case of small data centers located in mixed-use buildings, some energy savings may be brought about by maximizing the utilization of a house, office or support area system that is equipped with an economizer.

Over-specifying the space temperature and humidity tolerance would result in drastic reduction in economization savings, which at all costs should be avoided. Especially with respect to humidity, actual manufacturer requirements must be followed where 40 to 55 percent of the operating region is often found to be conservative.

The key objective of economizers is for all data center air handlers to have access to 100 percent outside air as well as return air. Apart from annual energy cost savings, there are other benefits such as lower run hours on cooling equipment and improved system redundancy. For good performance of air-side economizers, control systems are very important, and they need to be properly maintained. With proper attention to a few key design issues, economization offers even larger saving benefits to data centers.

An outdoor economizing system is best implemented at the starting stage of schematic design, where any essential architectural accommodations can be made at little or no additional cost. While this is typically easiest with a central air handling system, several Computer Room Air Conditioner (CRAC) manufacturers now coming up with economization packages.

Data centers in very temperate climates with no concern regarding space humidity control could use a standard economizer controls, which operates based only on the dry bulb temperature without considering the humidity factor.

However it is far more common that we encounter variations in humidity. We fix a minimum humidity set point in a data center, which is typically the most critical control parameter influencing the savings from economization. In practice, many large data center facilities have a minimum humidity set point of 30 percent RH without causing any harm to the device. The actual requirements of the installed computer equipment should be evaluated by setting the data center humidity control band, and a minimum humidity higher than the equipment’s minimum requirement.

Of course, nothing is perfect. The air-economizer approach for cooling has mostly been looked down upon because of its comparatively weak cooling power provided by the initial prototypes and conceptual systems. The reliability of the servers are under threat when the proper cooling demands are not fully met, and thus a good data center design will take that into account when considering air-economizers. The issues with server failures, the variations with humidity and temperature, and the inferior air quality are a few other drawbacks of air economizers. These can be countered with proper location choices with drier and more temperate climates. However, the availability of these optimal conditions can be hard to locate, because if the location is remote, then the data center cannot be used at an optimal efficiency.

Data Center Talk updates its resources every day. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.
Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Articles, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Management, Data Center Power Tagged With: , ,

Cooling System Design Goals

May 19, 2012 By

Maintaining a suitable environment for information technology is probably the primary and most important problem facing data center and computer room managers today. Dramatic and unpredictable critical load growth has levied a heavy burden on the cooling infrastructure of these facilities making intelligent, efficient design crucial to maintaining an always available data center.

To establish an effective cooling solution for any new or upgraded data center or computer room, it is essential to establish a set of design goals. Some of these goals have been categorized below:

 Adaptability
1. Plan for increasing critical load power densities
2. Utilize standard, modular cooling system components to speed changes
3. Allow for increasing cooling capacity without load impact
4. Provide for cooling distribution improvements without load impact

Availability
1. Minimize the possibility for human error by using modular components
2. Provide as much cooling system redundancy as budget will allow
3. Eliminate air mixing by providing supply (cold air) and return (hot air) separation to maximize cooling efficiency
4. Eliminate bypass air flow to maximize effective cooling capacity
5. Minimize the possibility of fluid leaks within the computer room area as well as deploy a detection system
6. Minimize vertical temperature gradients at the inlet of critical equipment
7. Control humidity to avoid static electricity build up and mold growth

Maintainability
1. Deploy the simplest effective solution to minimize the technical expertise needed to assess, operate, and service the system
2. Utilize standard, modular cooling system components to improve serviceability
3. Assure system can be serviced under a single service contract

Manageability
1. Provide accurate and concise cooling performance data in the format of the overall management platform
2. Provide local and remote system monitoring access capabilities

Cost
1. Optimize capital investment by matching the cooling requirements with the installed redundant capacity and plan for scalability
2. Simplify the ease of deployment to reduce unrecoverable labor costs
3. Utilize standard, modular, cooling system components to lower service contract costs
4. Provide redundant cooling capacity and air distribution in the smallest feasible footprint

 Power density is best defined in terms of rack or cabinet foot print area since all manufacturers produce cabinets of generally the same size. This area can be described as a rack location unit (RLU), to borrow Rob Snevely’s, of Sun Microsystems, description.

The standard RLU width is usually based on a twenty-four (24) inch standard. The depth can vary between thirty-five (35) and forty-two (42) inches. Additionally, the height can vary between 42U and 47U of rack space, which equates to a height of approximately seventy-nine (79) and eighty-nine (89) inches, respectively.

Designing a precision cooling system requires an understanding of the amount of heat produced by the IT equipment and by other heat sources in the data center. Common measurements include BTUs per hour, tons per day, and watts. The mixed use of these different units causes unnecessary confusion for users and specifiers. Fortunately, there is a worldwide trend among standards organizations to move toward a common cooling standard— watt. The archaic terms of BTUs and tons (which refer to the cooling capacity of ice) will be phased out over time.

Since the power transmitted by IT equipment through data lines is negligible, the power consumed from AC service mains is essentially all converted to heat. (Power over Ethernet or PoE devices may transmit up to 30 percent of their power consumption to remote terminals, but this paper assumes for simplicity that all electrical power is dissipated locally.) This fact allows for the straightforward representation of IT thermal output as watts, equal to its power consumption in watts. For further simplicity, the total heat output of a system—therefore, the total cooling requirement—is the sum of the heat output of the components, which includes the IT equipment plus other items such as UPS, power distribution, air conditioning units, lighting, and people. Fortunately, the heat output rates of these items can be easily determined using simple and standardized rules.

The heat output of the UPS and power distribution systems consists of a fixed loss plus a loss proportional to operating power. Conveniently, these losses are sufficiently consistent across equipment brands and models to be approximated without significant error. Lighting and people can also be readily estimated using standard values. The only user-specific parameters needed are a few readily available values, such as the floor area and the rated electrical system power.

Although air conditioning units create significant heat from fans and compressors, this heat is exhausted to the outside and does not create a thermal load inside the data center. This unavoidable energy loss does, however, detract from the efficiency of the air conditioning system and is normally accounted for when the air conditioner is sized.

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum.

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Articles, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Solutions Tagged With: , ,

Solving Data Center Space, Power and Cooling Crunch

May 14, 2012 By

Inadequate/ limited space, power, and cooling capacity have led many data centers or organizations  to be acquainted with capital and operating costs for their set ups. Data centers have become an increasing part of their financial plan over time. The lack of flexibility caused by obsolete, incompetent data centers has also begun to affect business dealing dexterity. Undeniably, many data centers built in the last 15 years have reached the precipitate end of existence. This is because; they were not built to sustain the development that actually has taken place of the years. Data centers are now realizing that better efficiency can reduce costs and increase business agility. This has led them to take necessary steps towards it.

Large firms are assessing ways to be more environmental friendly as a fine PR gesture. Certainly, even the rising substantiation of global climate change has not stimulated a lot of governmental or business organizations to take remarkable measures to diminish carbon dioxide emissions. By cutting down energy utilization and using substitute energy sources businesses can improve cost efficiency. Data center operators are currently everywhere. They are now leaning towards space, power, and cooling crunch that using “Green” technology which can help them to assuage.

The problem is that data center operators are finding themselves in a space, power, and cooling crunch which is a result of years of constructing and setting up applications without considering the power consumption. Data centers are burdened with an inheritance of outdated applications that were deployed with one function per server or one function spread across a whole intact service cluster of servers. These servers are outdated and generate a reduced amount of performance per watt than present day servers. Applications have classically been deployed in silos, with the server technology of the day deployed within silos, servers sized for the utmost conceivable workload, and negative reserve sharing between application silos. On top of all this, power requirements are beyond data center design criteria, designs that were expected to last for as long as 20 years. Data centers were once built to hold up to 40-70watts of energy use per square foot costing roughly around USD $400 per square foot to build that included power and cooling infrastructure. Nowadays, requirements sum up to 500 watts per square foot, with building costs close to $6,000 per square foot. Every watt that is used requires more or less the same number of watts to get rid of the heat that is generated.  When data center goes on battery power, and when air-conditioning is out, where it once took 15 minutes for the temperature to rise 25 degrees, it now takes less than a minute for the present day servers.

There are number of ways to solving data center power and cooling crunch:

  • Putting away aging data center equipment with up-to-date, more potent and energy-efficient servers and storage is a simple way to optimize power efficiency.
  • Using virtualization to consolidate minor number of systems.
  • Advancing power and cooling efficiency in every aspect of operations, from servers to the tool work area.
  • Reconfiguring data center spaces with a modular, flexible, and competent plan that chains expansion and an ability to take the constant equipment turn over which distinguishes most data centers today.
  • Arrange modern storage systems and tape libraries that can seize more data while consuming less power.
  • Consolidating storage so it can be administered as a sole pool of resources.
  • Installing competent spot cooling

To obtain the advantage from implementing power optimization strategies, it’s essential to reconfigure the already active data center spaces or create fresh ones. So, here are some of the ways to crack space problems in data center:

  • Accessibility through a design that includes suitable use of tier levels.
  • Capacity to support multiple tiers in a single data center
  • A design that is flexible and adaptable, ready to align IT resources with altering business purposes
  • A highly supportive cabling, power, and cooling infrastructure in the data center
  • A design which can be used for the few generations of equipment, which are likely to have even-higher power, cooling, and cabling needs.
  • Environmental awareness that identifies “going green” makes a company look good, mainly when it engages effortless methods like – using outside air for cooling, can save costs over the years.
  • Smart observation that allows power utilization to be scrutinized at all level in the power allotment hierarchy, giving clarity into existing operational factor and the impact of other power saving steps.

Data Center Talk updates its resources every day. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.
Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

Share on TwitterSubmit to StumbleUpon
Filed Under: Articles, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Design, Data Center Power, Data Center Solutions Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »