[Zitibake]

I assist a facility that doesn't use a warm-air return plenum, doesn't have a particularly high ceiling, and the CRACs intake warm return air at head-height. There are some cold aisles that end relatively near the downflow CRACs. It appears that the CRACs could be sucking some cool air out of the ends of the cold aisles. I was wondering if anyone installs doors or other air barriers at the ends of cold aisles, to help keep CRACs from sucking cold air?

Similarly, I have seen instances where bladeservers placed near the top of a cabinet suck warm air down into the cold aisle. Totally contained hot aisles can keep the warm air from recirculation, but require in-row cooling, or ducting the warm air to the CRAC intakes. In a datacenter with legacy downflow CRACs and no warm plenum, I am wondering if it would make sense to repurpose some "warm aisle containment" hardware to cover-over part of a cold aisle, where bladeververs are mounted high, to help keep the bladeservers from sucking overhead air.