How to cool a data center?

[whcdavid]

News Story by Gary H. Anthes

NOVEMBER 01, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Several solutions to the cooling problem are at hand or in the wings. They include the following:

• Directed cooling. Rather than keeping the entire data center at some low temperature or, as is common today, using a zoned approach based on the aisles between rows of equipment, data center designers will resort to highly directed supplemental cooling, such as water- or refrigerant-based cooling units attached to or inside individual racks, cabinets or individual components.
  
• Water-cooled processors. This is a throwback to the mainframe era. The major computer manufacturers are looking at this but haven't made any product announcements. "If I was looking three to five years out, I'd still design the raised-floor air system that's common today, but I'd incorporate chilled water so you could accommodate water-cooled equipment without having to go back and retrofit," says Terry Rodgers, a facilities manager at Fannie Mae in Washington.
  
  "That certainly makes sense for large data centers," says Ron Hughes, president of California Data Center Design Group.
  
• Spreading out hot equipment. Some companies simply aren't filling their server racks and are spacing them farther apart on the floor. In some cases, that's a low-cost solution, but it can be impractical when space is tight and real estate is expensive.
  
• Smarter capacity planning and smarter allocation of cooling capacity. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Inc. this year published guidelines by which server manufactures can report heat-release and airflow requirements for minimal, typical and full configurations of their equipment. These "thermal reports" can help data center designers avoid hot spots as well as excess cooling capacity overall, says Don Beaty, president of DLB Associates Consulting Engineers PC.