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The power required to cool IT equipment will soon exceed the energy needed to run the system. The new generation of power hungry blade servers brings with it new cooling issues and is set to escalate the demand for electricity creating severe problems for datacentres within urban areas.
The answer, according to Jeremy Hartley, MD of Dataracks, is to improve the flow of air through the datacentre to slash the energy wasted in overcooling. He is challenging datacentre managers to participate in the Hot Spot Challenge – a free thermal analysis of their datacentre to show them how much power they are wasting with chillers.
He comments, “Electricity bills are often not in the budgets of IT managers and planners and so there is no incentive on the ground for cutting power consumption – so concerns such as high availability take precedence.”
“However the new generation of blade servers is not only incredibly power hungry but also deeper than traditional servers so will be more difficult to cool. This will inevitably lead to a power surge when datacentres start to adopt this technology, bringing energy consumption up the agenda.”
Jeremy and his team have many years of experience working with datacentres that have inherited a mix of different enclosures, and understands the issues faced by managers. His approach, named eCool Solutions, can be retrofitted in a live environment and the drop in temperature can be felt on the skin within hours.
Before installing eCool cold aisle containment – which includes a unique system of blanking panels, aisle end curtains and a special suspended ceiling – the team provides a thermal analysis so that the datacentre manager can see ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots of the facility. The ‘before’ results are frequently a surprise, and even a restricted trial of eCool can show where energy can be saved. One small pilot project saved £35k in fuel bills.
“We have found a 40° variation in temperature within certain buildings and as a result the cold aisle was frequently overcooled to 20° below the recommended levels. Not only is this a complete waste of energy but it also takes the cold aisle temperature below dew point creating pools of condensation, or drying the air so humidifiers are needed to reduce static. This is madness.”
“Downtime and not efficiency has been the traditional yard stick for the industry, but efficient cooling can have a positive impact on downtime performance. If the air temperature is consistently inline with manufacturers’ recommendations then the servers’ own fans work more efficiently. We have found that hardware failures are reduced and that low temperatures can be maintained for precious minutes after an energy failure.”
The industry is under pressure to reduce its energy consumption. According to a report by McKinsey, the IT industry as a whole will generate as much CO2 as the airline industry by 2020, and there are already restrictions on the location of datacentres as a result of their energy demands.
The EU has launched a Code of Conduct for datacentres which aims to encourage datacentre owners and operators to voluntarily sign up to have the energy efficiency of their operations measured, and agree to an action plan and an annual progress report.
However, according to Hartley there is still resistance in the industry to consider a low-cost solution to this problem.
“In some ways what eCool Solutions offers is too simple. It may seem unbelievable but some datacentre managers are even considering putting chillers on the doors of enclosures to cope with the problems that blade servers are causing. Who would want to plumb water into their datacentre when improving the flow of air through the server will provide a cheaper, better and safer long-term solution?”
To benefit from the free eCool Solutions Hot Spot Challenge call 0800 583 5026 or look at our Hot Spot Challenge page for more information.
