Cooling Your Data Center and Saving Energy
In looking at managing the energy budget for the entire data center, users need to factor in the energy for cooling systems as well as the power for the equipment. Over the past two years, as energy prices have soared and servers have gotten denser and hotter, data center power and cooling has become a critical issue.
Data centers perform computing functions vital to the U.S. economy, yet they require large amounts of energy to operate. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, in 2006, U.S. data centers used about 61 billion kWh—roughly 1.5% of all retail U.S. electricity sales. To support the growing demand for processing power throughout the nation, data centers are using ever more compact and energy-intensive servers—even as the total number and size of data centers continues to increase. This is creating a serious burden on the U.S. electric grid.
Manage Power and Cooling Issues
Correctly managing power and cooling issues can enable an IT organization to improve reliability in mission-critical environments, increase data center efficiency, and reduce energy costs. There are many cutting edge technologies that can be implemented, such as direct liquid cooling and In-Row cooling, but these are best employed when building a data center from scratch and unfortunately for many companies, major investments in IT or infrastructure are unrealistic in today’s economic environment.
To help companies improve their data center cooling efficiencies, Electronic Environments Corporation offers a series of data center cooling solutions that can result in energy savings. These solutions range from the simple installation of brush sealed raised floor grommets that seal cable openings in the raised floor, HotSpotr air movers and ultrasonic humidification—to a detailed analysis of the data center’s thermal environment called Demand Based Cooling. For more information on these solutions, see a brief explanation below or feel free to visit our web site at: http://www.eecnet.com/DataCenterAirMgt.htm
Conclusion
A number of benefits can result by better management of data center power and cooling issues; these include a better data center infrastructure, reduced overheating risks which in turn mean fewer failures, and reduced energy expenses—reduced operating costs. Electronic Environments’ goal is to provide customers with a means to understand their power and cooling needs as well as the best way to maintain their data centers’ now and into the future.
Below you will find information on each of energy saving solutions from Electronic Environments:
Brush Sealed Raised Floor Grommets – The AirGuard™ brush sealed floor grommets help to prevent air loss in plenum cooled floors when access holes are required for cable routing through the raised floor. An immediate “energy-savings” benefit is realized by using the AirGuard products.
HotSpotr™ Air Movers– HotSpotr is a family of thermostatically controlled airflow improvement products that move chilled data center air to precisely where it is needed the most, and remove heated exhaust air directly back to your computer room air conditioners (CRACs).
Ultrasonic Humidification – With ever-increasing requirements for reliability and availability, environmental control is critical to protecting today’s sensitive computer systems. A clean, filtered environment with precise control over temperature and humidity is mandatory. The ultrasonic approach to control humidity uses a Piezoelectric transducer that converts a high frequency electronic signal into high frequency mechanical oscillation, which ultimately converts water into vapor at low temperature and pressure.
Demand Based Cooling (DBC) –This is a comprehensive solution that incorporates the latest in control technology to dynamically manage airflow and cooling. Benefits of this system include more efficient cooling (up to 30% savings on cooling electricity or the ability to add 30% more servers), user selectable SNMP alarms, trending, and reporting of data center environmental conditions.
During an adverse event such as a computer room air con
ditioner (CRAC) failure, the DBC system automatically manages the cooling resources in the data center by shifting available cooling from zones that have excess cooling to zones that require more cooling.
The entire process to design and implement an RSIC solution for a typical data center can be completed in less time, and at less expense, than an infrastructure upgrade such as a new CRAC or liquid cooling solution. On-site survey and analysis, CFD modeling, reviewing the options and designing the ideal solution requires a total of approximately three weeks. The modifications themselves are usually completed in a just a few days.
And the results come just as swiftly. The system provides real-time airflow and temperature control, an active user interface, and 24/7 thermal monitoring and alarming, with automated adjustment of fan speeds in zones during an operational failure. The result is the virtual elimination of hot spots, rack temperatures that do not exceed 77°F, and a significant reduction in energy consumption, typically between 20% and 30%. In many cases, data center operators choose to use the improved cooling efficiency to install more servers in the same space, without having to install more infrastructure. Thus the useful life of a data center is immediately extended, with operating and capital expenses much lower than other heat-reduction solutions. Room Scale Intelligent Cooling technology is helping data centers that can no longer take the heat move into the future, with a low-cost approach that’s totally cool.
For more information on our Data Center Energy Efficiency Cooling & Airflow Solutions, please contact us at 800-342-5332 or email us at sales@eecnet.com.