Yahoo! and eCool Solutions collaborated on a project to improve the cooling and energy efficiency of a Yahoo! datacentre.
The project has been highly successful and has resulted in significant financial savings. Cost saving for one suite was estimated at £35,000, the whole building is predicted to be £1million per year.
About eCool Solutions
eCool Solutions is a new approach to keeping datacentres cool, which is crucial to their performance.
A
significant rise in temperature will
result in hardware failure, but keeping
a consistent temperature is difficult.
Datacentres are often overcooled,
which reduces the humidity, resulting
in additional problems such as static
and condensation.
This is very energy intensive and inefficient.
Cold Aisle Containment provides a simple, effective solution. By managing airflow through the racking, it provides the optimum conditions for the server's own fans to work effectively. The temperature is kept within controlled margins, avoiding the extremes of heat and cold.
On
one customer site, the change in temperature
has been noticeable within an hour
of installation, and savings in energy
consumption start immediately.
Hardware failure is reduced, and some of the cooling equipment is made redundant.
How eCool works
By modelling the flow of air through the aisles, Dataracks found that traditional aisle designs result in areas of poor airflow, stagnant air, hot spots, excessive hot and cold temperatures, and considerable bypass air.
So it created a solution that, by controlling the flow of cooled air through the racking and aisles, improves the environment of the datacentre and maintains the optimal temperature.
eCool creates positive air pressure, which pushes the air more efficiently through the racks and keeps hot and cold airflows separate and prevents mixing.
Furthermore, the control of air temperatures and airflow, rather than overcooling, maintains the humidity of the datacentre, removing the need for additional humidifiers.
Key features
- Innovative aisle end curtain, ceiling panels and by-pass air control further increases the performance of the system.
- A unique system of air control blanking panels can be retrofitted and require no tools or fixings to fit in place.
- Innovative vertical bypass air control panels and separate tile cable cut-out brush grommets manage the airflow.
- Specially designed supports for ceiling section, melt at 58°C to allow the panels to drop to aid fire suppression; approved by leading datacentre insurers.
- For a room employing 11 CRAC units, it is possible to make redundant two units and still have a capacity of N+1 or better.
- Further capacity is saved on the main chiller units and power used by the server fans.
- Rack space can be better utilized within the power supply constraints and ceiling panels are easily removed for access to cabling, light fittings, fire suppression systems and cleaning.