Data Center Cooling

In data center’s, we might think that most of the heat is being produced by the servers, but that’s not correct. Because large amount of heat is being produced by the communication equipment. The main purpose of the data center cooling technology is to provides the stable environmental conditions for the Information Technology Equipment’s (ITE). In this blog, we shall discuss more about the data center cooling and the equipment’s that are being used to cool the data center.

           Most of the data centers operates in a temperate range between 65°F to 75°F. To attain this temperate, we can use cooling devices like Computer Room Air Conditioner (CRAC) or Computer Room Air Handler (CRAH) or Chiller or Economizer. There are two different types of CRACs, namely External Chiller Plant and Compressorized Chiller. CRAC units pull hot air from the top of the room and push the conditioned air to the space below the raised floor. Using perforated tiles, cold air is pushed to the front of the server. We should also prevent the mixing of hot and cold air. This can be done by using the Hot Aisle containment system, where the hot exhaust air is contained and returned to the air handlers. The complete mechanism of hot aisle containment system is shown in Figure 1.

      

(Figure 1 - Hot Aisle Containment System)

                CRAH is a device which is used to deal with the heat that are produced by the IT equipment’s. It uses fans, cooling coils and water chiller system to remove the heat from the data center. Chillers normally remove the heat from one equipment and deposit it into another element. Without chillers the temperature would quickly rise which corrupts the mission critical data and destroy hardware equipment. All these devices consume large amounts of electricity and would require dedicated power supply. We can save these energy cost by using the Economizer. It can be used in areas where winters have very cold temperature, like less than 40°F. These economizer fetches the cold air from outside and circulate into the data center. Exhaust openings and fans can be used to remove the hot air from the data center. This indeed helps to cool the IT equipment and reduce the power load on the chillers.

          The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard is the widely recognized air conditioning standard. According to ASHRAE, the average temperature of the data center should be between 65°F to 85 °F and the humidity should be maintained between 42°F DP to 59°F DP. Nowadays, most of the data centers are switching to computational fluid dynamics which helps in reducing the cooling cost. In my next blog, I will share other important aspects of the data center.

Reference: https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/a-look-at-data-center-cooling-technologies/