Last week, Upsite Senior Engineer and Company Science Officer, Lars Strong P.E., headlined an educational session at AFCOM’s Data Center World Virtual Conference titled, Clarifying ASHRAE’s Recommended Vs. Allowable Temperature Envelopes and How to Raise Cooling Set Points Without Raising Inlet Temperatures. As the title suggests, the session discussed the difference between ASHRAE’s recommended and allowable envelopes for server inlet temperatures and provided guidance on which one is the best to use. In addition, the session also provided guidance how to raise temperature set points safely, without raising inlet temperatures.

If you were unable to attend the virtual session, check out the presentation below.

Session Abstract

The topic of raising temperatures in data centers used to be met with much criticism in the industry, but in recent years has become more accepted. A big driver for this acceptance has been ASHRAE’s expanded envelope for recommended and allowable server inlet temperatures. However, while this has eased the discussion, there are still some questions that have been left unanswered. What’s the difference between recommended and allowable? Which one is best to use? What steps must be taken to safely raise set points? How do you ensure servers are still adequately cooled? What if you have different server types (A1, A2, A3, A4)? This presentation will examine these questions to give a clearer understanding of ASHRAE’s recommended and allowable guidelines. Also covered will be an explanation on how, in some cases, it is possible to raise cooling control set points without raising server inlet temperatures.

Further Reading

One of our key contributors, Ian Seaton, recently wrote an in-depth 4-part series on this very topic that is well worth the read. If you haven’t had the chance to read through them yet, we highly recommend that you do (links included below).

What Is the Difference Between ASHRAE’s Recommended and Allowable Data Center Environmental Limits?, 4-part series by Ian Seaton:

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

Read Part 3

Read Part 4