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Effective Cooling Tactics According to Amazon Data Center Facility Engineer

2009-08-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

According to A recent SearchDataCenter article, many IT departments may be wasting valuable resources by using outdated approaches to data center cooling, James Hamilton, VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services, in a talk he gave at the recent Usenix Conference in San Diego said the first step is to provide tighter control of airflow in the data center by effective arrangement of server cooling units. He suggests connecting server racks to a container system that seals air flow into and out of the rack, providing better control over air temperature. When attached to a sealed enclosure, little air is lost - or mixed. Variable speed fans inside the container as well as tight feedback between computer room air conditioner (CRAC) and the heat load will enable a system to eliminate inefficiencies in the server fans and deliver better cooling.

Computer Room Air Conditioning Ambient Climate Control

Many data centers tend to waste energy by keeping servers cooler than necessary. According to the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the recommended inlet air temperature for servers is 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The ASHRAE specification sets an allowable temperature of 90 degrees. Hamilton noted that some Dell servers are warranted for 95 degrees, while telco equipment and some servers can run at 104 degrees. These server room air conditioning approaches can save energy, however, raising inlet air temperatures can carry some risks.

Since many systems can run at higher temperatures without problems, Hamilton suggested using outside air to cool computing equipment, with air conditioning available as needed. This cooling strategy is called an air-side economizer.
He noted that there may be issues with particulates, especially if a generator is being run near the air input or there is a fire nearby. To reduce these issues, he notes that filtration and other techniques can prepare the air to be pumped through the data center.
For more information about Hamilton's take on data center efficiency and other issues, contact your local server room cooling specialists.

Saving Energy By Checking Your Cooling System

2009-07-24T03:58:00.000-07:00

To reduce heat gain in the summer and heat loss during the winter, using ceiling, floor and wall insulation, weather-stripping, plug and switch-plate gaskets, and insulated windows and window coverings can make your computer room air conditioning units run significantly more efficiently.

A simple server room cooling system maintenance check can save money and energy while creating a more comfortable environment. The average home refrigeration unit is designed to cool the inside of a house or apartment to about 10 degrees lower than the ambient exterior temperature. Gas-filled coils in a refrigeration unit are fan-cooled at the exterior and the cooled gas is circulated to the interior, where another fan blows air across the cooled gas to produce refrigerated air.

Window units illustrate the best example of this process. On the inside of the home, you can feel cool air as it passes around the cooled coils while warm air is discharged as air passes over the coils on the outside. Refrigerant gas travels between two units via a copper line referred to as the refrigerant line. Small leaks in the system can allow refrigerant to escape and when this happens, more electricity will be used with less cooling effect. Have the refrigerant level checked every year or two.

In evaporative air conditioning systems, or water coolers, tap water is pumped through filters that surround a high speed fan that is belt-driven by an electric motor. As the fan blows air through the filters, the water running through the filters evaporates, cooling as it the temperature of the air in the house, office, or computer room.

Making sure the filters through which the water travels are cleaned before each operating season means maximum efficiency in a water cooler system. Dirty, grime-filled filters can reduce air flow in a ceiling mounted cooling system and unnecessarily tax the fan motor and waste energy. Also, adjusting the drive belt between the motor and fan may be necessary. If too tight, no energy is wasted, but it will wear out more quickly. If too loose, the motor will spin more than is needed and waste energy.

If you are comparing the two systems, the refrigeration type is a bit more expensive to purchase and operate than a water cooler, but refrigerated air is more healthful for those with allergies and produces no humidity. In fact, a refrigerated central air system also acts as a dehumidifier, which makes it a particularly popular choice in humid climates.

James and Morris Carey are Associated Press columnists who owned and operated a home remodeling and construction business in the San Francisco Bay area for many years. For more home improvement tips and information about floor mounted cooling systems, contact your room cooling specialists to learn more.

IBM Building 'Green' Data Center At Syracuse

2009-06-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

Not long ago the infrastructure pieces needed to construct a data center were pretty straightforward-- Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units, power conditioning equipment, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), and electrical and plumbing to tie it all together. It wasn't unimportant. But it was largely a well-understood extension to the HVAC infrastructure of a typical commercial building.

According to CNet.com reports, that's changing in a big way for two major reasons.

The first is that servers may have gotten smaller but IT shops are trying to cram ever more of them into a given space. The result is that more power has to be delivered to and more heat taken away from ever smaller volumes of space.

The second is that data center operators are starting to factor power efficiency into their buying decisions. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) has entered the lexicon as a metric for evaluating how much of the power delivered to a data center goes into running the computers themselves as opposed to the infrastructure needed to support them.

In short, figuring out innovative ways to build efficient data centers with integrated server room cooling systems is suddenly very popular. I've been offered more tours of data centers in the past year by companies such as Intel intent on showing off newly developed approaches to cooling and modularity.

Thus, it's not especially surprising that IBM is now announcing that, together with Syracuse University and the state of New York, they "have entered into a multi-year agreement to build a new computer data center on the university's campus that will incorporate advanced construction and smarter computing technologies to make it one of the most energy efficient data centers in the world. The data center is expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center today, making it one of the 'greenest' computer centers in operation."

The $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will have on-site electrical co-generation system that uses a natural gas-fueled microturbine engine to generate all the electricity for the center and power floor mounted cooling systems for cooling the computer servers.

Syracuse will manage and analyze the performance of the data center, "as well as research and develop new data center energy efficiency analysis and modeling tools. IBM will provide more than $5 million in equipment, design services and support, which includes supplying the electrical co-generation equipment and servers such as IBM BladeCenter, IBM Power 575, and IBM z10 systems. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is contributing $2 million to the project."

This will be an operational data center, albeit a relatively modest-sized one with ceiling mounted cooling systems, compared to mega-service provider facilities. (New Microsoft and Google data centers are reportedly in the 100,000- to 500,000-square-foot range.)

This may not be a particularly surprising announcement given the level of activity in this area. But it's nonetheless notable that an aspect of computing that was, in many respects, a sleepy backwater of incremental advance and its own impenetrable jargon is suddenly the subject of lots of new fundamental research.

EPA Shares 'Cool' Ideas For A Hot Summer

2009-05-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

With summer and the high costs of cooling right around the corner, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is offering advice to help Americans reduce both energy bills and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by one-third, Environmental Protection News reports recently. The energy used in an average home costs more than $2,200 a year and contributes more GHG emissions than a typical car. And in the office, energy-efficient computer room air conditioning systems help cut energy and systems maintenance costs for businesses in various industries.

A few simple changes can help create real reductions in high summer electric bills and provide a hefty cut in greenhouse gas emissions in the bargain, according to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "It’s important that we all do our part to confront climate change, especially when it can help save money during these challenging economic times."

Here are some tips for home and work:

Set your programmable thermostat to save while you are away or asleep. Using it properly can save up to $180 per year in energy costs. In server rooms which generate heat constantly, an effective server room cooling system is necessary in keeping temperatures and the overall environment controlled twenty four hours a day. Making sure the temperature settings on these cooling units are correctly calibrated could mean significant savings in energy costs.

Run ceiling fans in a clockwise direction to create a wind-chill effect that will make you "feel" cooler. Remember that ceiling fans cool people, not rooms -- so turn them off when you leave the room.

Inspect your duct system for obvious signs of leaks and disconnections (most houses leak 20 percent or more). Seal any leaks with foil tape or a special sealant called "duct mastic." Also consider insulating ducts in unconditioned areas (like the attic, basement or crawlspace).

Office spaces and computer rooms are just as prone to air leaks as residential houses are. Floor mounted cooling systems regulate a room’s temperature by cooling it from the bottom up – be sure to optimize the arrangement of your columns to achieve the most benefit from a computer room cooling system. At home, seal air leaks to keep the heat out and the cool air in. The biggest air leaks are usually found in the attic or basement but also come in around doors, windows, vents, pipes, and electrical outlets. Use caulk, spray foam, or weather stripping to seal the leaks. And add more insulation to keep your home cooler this summer.

Maintain your cooling system. Check your system’s air filter every month at a minimum and change the filter every three months. Remove leaves, dirt, and other debris from around the outdoor components to improve air flow and efficiency. Have a qualified professional tune-up your system with a pre-season maintenance checkup and, if it’s time to replace your old system, look for energy-saving models that have earned EPA’s approval for efficiency.

Turn off office lights and equipment when not in use so they don’t generate unnecessary heat. Be sure, however, that ceiling mounted cooling systems in your server room remains on 24/7; computer room cooling systems do not operate like central air conditioning which shut off on weekends.

Replace incandescent light bulbs in your desk lamp with energy-conserving compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use two-thirds less energy and generate less heat than conventional bulbs.

Disclaimer: This blog or article is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used for search engine optimization and other commercial purposes and it is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.

Keep The Information Flowing: Cooling Systems For Data Servers

2009-04-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, hundreds of thousands of servers rapidly transmit emails, process Internet search queries, safeguard classified data, handle online financial transactions, and store videos and medical records. And they consume huge amounts of megawatts in the process.

Server farms are growing fast, fed by an apparently recession-proof demand for electronic information. US News reports that data center electricity use has more than doubled between 2000 and 2006 nationwide, and is expected to double again by 2011. These numbers are prompting an ambitious effort to make these facilities more energy efficient to reduce costs. In 2005, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that "a single high-powered rack of servers consumes enough energy in a single year to power a hybrid car across the United States 337 times." In the average data center, in fact, only about half of the energy is used by processors themselves; the other half is used on server room cooling systems.

Google says it has been able to reduce the energy needed to regulate the temperature in its facilities to about 20 percent of the industry average, in part by using sophisticated computer room air conditioning units and water-based cooling towers.

Energy gains can come from simple structural changes that do not cramp up the server room. Installing a ceiling mounted cooling system saves floor space for protected equipment, and ceiling/roof mount systems also offer the flexibility of configuration options such as ducting, various reheat options, free-cooling, and other features to allow the system to be tailored to the needs of a company’s application. At SoftLayer's Chantilly facility, which opened last May, the servers are stacked in dense vertical racks, the racks are arranged in rows, and between the rows are alternating hot and cold aisles. The cold aisles have vents in the floor (serving as a sort of floor mounted cooling system) that emit cold air that cools the front faces of the servers; the hot rows get the exhaust from the back side. The racks also are tightly packed—up to 44 servers per rack. The higher the density of the servers—the more servers per square foot— the fewer feet in need of cooling.

As data centers become more sophisticated, new strategies for energy use are emerging. Big companies like Google and Yahoo, for instance, have opted to build their own facilities from the ground up, which gives them more control over a facility's design and engineering, particularly its heating and cooling systems.

Disclaimer: This blog or article is for information purpose only, and should not be treated a professional advise or price protection guarantee. This blog is mainly used for search engine optimization and other commercial purposes and it is advised that readers seek professional consultation in the field of interest for more information.