Definitions: Cooling Systems

Definition

Cooling in the datacenter generally refers to two types of system: the HVAC units that keep the ambient air from overheating, and specialized water- and air-cooling systems that feed directly into server and storage racks and even to the processor cores themselves.

Heat is the enemy in complex computing environments in that it causes the silicon pathways on CPUs to break down, causing hardware failures that could result in loss of applications or, even worse, critical data.

Business Applications

Datacenter cooling took center stage in 2007 and 2008 as the cost of energy started to climb. It takes a lot of energy to cool large rooms of always-on computing equipment, so any means to reduce the heat generated by IT equipment started to see high demand. Low-power processing, storage and networking equipment offered a two-pronged benefit to the data center in that they drew less power to function and generated less heat that had to be dissipated.

Efforts to improve cooling efficiency have run the gamut from installing newer energy-efficient  technology to wholesale reconstruction of the data center. Raised flooring, hot aisle/cold aisle rack configurations and new chiller technologies are some of the more common steps being taken. Some firms have taken to relocating their centers to low-humidity areas like Salt Lake City and using natural rainwater and wind patterns for energy-free cooling resources.

Deployment Concerns

Air-cooled systems are by far the more popular due to the risk of leakage in water-cooled technology, although this may start to change due to water’s greater efficiency and its ability to bring the cooling element  (water) directly to where it’s needed, much like the cooling system on a car.

Effective air-cooling often requires HVAC specialists and sophisticated software to analyze air-flow patterns in a given room and make suggestions on placement of cooling elements and room layouts.

Technical details

Heating and cooling bring in a number of technologies that most IT staff may not be familiar with. Terms like delta-T, thermal design metric and average CPU power are quickly being adding to the datacenter lexicon.

There are also organizations like the U.S. Green Building Council and The Green Grid that are working toward green datacenter standards.