6 Data Center Cooling Mistakes You May Be Making

While cooling management awareness has improved dramatically over the last decade, there are still issues that limit both the capacity and efficiency gains of cooling management improvements. The goal of airflow management is to maintain or improve IT equipment intake air temperatures in a way that allows for increasing cooling control temperature set points and reducing cooling airflow volumes as much as possible. If this is done then cooling capacity is maximized while operating cost is minimized. Here are a few mistakes, in no particular order, I often see in computer rooms, even if they have made an effort to improve cooling management.

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Hot Aisle Containment vs. Cold Aisle Containment: Which is Better for the Data Center?

Containment has gone mainstream in the past few years in the data center industry, which has led to widespread implementation and adoption by many sites. In fact, according to a recent survey by the Uptime Institute, 80% of sites have implemented either hot or cold aisle containment. While the survey represented mostly larger facilities, many medium and small facilities have either implemented or are considering some form of containment. This high rate of adoption has left a lot people asking the same question: Is it better to contain the hot aisle or the cold aisle?

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Top Data Center Trends and Predictions for 2015

What changes are in store for the data center in 2015? We set to find out by talking to industry experts Bruce Taylor, Ian Seaton, Vince Renaud, and Lars Strong, here’s what they had to say:

First and foremost, it may be useful to point out that some of the predictions and trends we will be talking about have been discussed in the past  from time to time. What we want to focus on here are not only predictions, but also trends that are now and already well along in the making. We have a tendency to forget how long it takes for any industry to actually make the full shift to a new and more disruptive paradigm. So perhaps the biggest prediction is the old saw, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

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How A-4 Servers Could Impact the Future of Data Center Airflow Management

What is an A-4 class server and how might they impact the future of data center airflow management?

In 2011, ASHRAE TC9.9 updated their environmental guidelines for data processing equipment and added four new server classes, distinguished by their allowable inlet temperature ranges. Class A-4 servers have an allowable range of 41⁰F to 113⁰F. The other major contribution of this update was establishing the “X” factor as the basis for a methodology for determining an acceptable number of hours per year to operate at these wider temperature ranges. In a nutshell, the “X” factor is the reliability level (failure rate) that should be expected for operating the data center at a constant 68⁰F all year.

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Slab vs. Raised Floor: 3 Things to Consider

There is a small movement away from raised floor environments in data centers to a slab floor. There are arguments on both sides regarding which is better. Many are convinced that their solution is the only way to go. However, there are some considerations you should review in order to make the proper decision.

For many years now, raised floor has been the way to go. It offers the ability to provide cooling from below as well as house power, networking, and piping associated with the cooling systems. It enables flexibility to easily move in any cabinet or cluster in a hot/cold aisle configuration by simply installing a perforated tile at the point of cooling.

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