“As
a company we are committed to reducing
our environmental impacts. By encouraging
the development of approaches such
as eCool Solutions, we have shown
that it is possible for the industry
to reduce its carbon footprint significantly.”
European Datacentre Operations
Manager, Yahoo!
Case studies
Yahoo! - European Datacentre Operation
The issue | The solution | The outcome
The issue
Yahoo! approached Dataracks to look at ways to eliminate hot spots and improve the life expectancy and efficiency of its London datacentres. Work on the first three aisle pilot project started in June 2007.
“A datacentre operates 24/7 and as
any minor outage would create huge
consequences for the end clients we
have built considerable redundancy
into our facility. This includes a
spare cooler for every two in operation
and keeping the temperature lower
than required to allow for variation.”
European Datacentre Operations Manager,
Yahoo!
The solution
After an environmental assessment, Dataracks identified the problems with airflow through the aisles of the datacentre and designed an innovative solution to rectify the issues.
Following the success of the pilot project the trial was expanded to the full room (200 racks), resulting in continued improved temperature management in the datacentre and significant reduction in energy consumption.
The aisles were noticeably colder in less than an hour of the solution being implemented. As it proved possible to maintain temperatures in the cold aisle consistently, the data manager felt confident in reducing the cooling, raising inlet temperature to 20°C from 14°C with further rises being implemented. Hot air return temperatures increased, creating a greater temperature differential, which improved CRAC efficiency
The drop in energy usage attracted interest from the Datacentre property owner (who will be implementing the solution across their Datacentres throughout Europe.)
The outcome
“When Dataracks installed the eCool Cold Aisle Containment we noticed the difference within an hour. The temperature reduced and has kept the cold aisle consistent within 2-3°C. This has enabled us to balance the cooling system, put two of the eleven CRAC units onto standby and cut energy consumption by 15%.” European Datacentre Operations Manager, Yahoo!
Slashed energy consumption
- Of the three 1 Mw roof mounted chillers, one was made redundant due to efficiency gains.
- The room server power consumption was reduced by 10Kws due to a 60% efficiency gain.
- The building cooling power consumption saved a further 65Kw.
- Makes standby equipment such as chillers and CRAC redundant.
Cut capital investment in computer hardware and infrastructure equipment
- Temperature is now kept consistently within manufacture’s parameters of desired temperatures. Inlet temperatures to servers of 20°C and outlet temperatures of 27°C. Without Cold Aisle Containment the temperature in a Datacentre can vary by 40°C (ranging between 8–48°C.) and hardware failures can occur.
- Reduced need for standby equipment especially chillers and CRAC units and increased their efficiency - two CRAC units and one roof chiller were made redundant.
Return on investment 3 months
- Installation paid for itself in months in energy cost savings. The room cost saving is estimated at £35,000 and the whole building predicted to be £1 million per year.
Retrofitted in a live environment
Buys time in an outage
- The solution can help maintain temperature for up to an hour in the event of a cooling failure, providing additional time to rectify the fault.