Data Center Cooling: Top Five Things to Know About Data Center Cooling

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Data Center Cooling Top Five Things to Know
About Data Center Cooling
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Data Center Cooling

• Several trends are taking place with data center
  cooling technologies and operations. As a major
  component of the physical data center, cooling
  has the potential to improve performance levels,
  or cause serious availability issues.
•  
• Basically, data center cooling involves systems
  that remove heat from a data center. These
  systems include computer room air conditioners
  and subsystems such as chillers, cooling towers,
  condensers, air distribution devices and other
  system components.

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Data Center Cooling

• Like many data center systems, cooling
  components must be integrated seamlessly to
  provide maximum effectiveness for the overall
  data center infrastructure.
•  
• With changes in computing technology coming fast
  and furious, data center cooling systems are
  challenged to keep pace. The five key
  requirements cooling systems must address include
  the following

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Data Center Cooling

• Scalability. As with all IT components, the
  ability to scale to changing requirements is
  crucial. With cooling, its difficult to predict
  future needs because technologies and business
  strategies change often.
•  
• Many companies make the mistake of
  over-compensating with their data center cooling
  systems. By doing so, they waste money and
  sacrifice current efficiencies while trying to
  accommodate some unknown future requirement.
•  
• Although it is difficult to incorporate
  additional cooling to existing space,
  professional data center design consultants can
  help businesses find the right balance and still
  allow for future growth.

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Data Center Cooling

• Standardization. Data center cooling
  installations often involve many engineers and
  vendors that greatly complicate deployments.
  However, if cooling components can be
  standardized, a significant amount of the
  complexity is eliminated. Simplifying design and
  installation saves companies time and money.
•  
• In addition, designing customized systems can
  create dependencies on expensive engineering
  staff well into the future. Standardization
  helps avoid these dependencies so data center
  operators can focus instead on new technologies
  to improve overall performance.

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Data Center Cooling

• Simplified Systems. Along with complexity comes
  a greater likelihood of performance issues like
  downtime. Staffing errors contribute to these
  performance issues when data center cooling
  systems are unnecessarily complex. In addition,
  repairs can increase costs and time requirements.
•  
• Intelligence. The ability for a data center
  cooling system to determine functional levels can
  have a direct impact on performance. For
  example, rack temperatures can vary greatly from
  top to bottom. These variances place stress on
  individual components and can cause failure.
  However, a cooling system that can adjust
  automatically to different cooling needs will
  ensure greater levels of system uptime.

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Data Center Cooling

• Cooling Management Systems. Providing valuable
  information to data center managers can help
  diagnose and repair cooling system problems
  before they cause downtime. A comprehensive
  management system can alert staff of individual
  component failures so they can be addressed
  immediately.
•  
• Providing insight through monitoring and
  reporting of cooling unit performance can help
  alleviate costly and time-consuming issues. In
  addition, cooling management systems can also
  help with decision-making for new equipment
  configurations and data center expansions.

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Data Center Cooling

• Data center design practices of the past are not
  sufficient in todays complex IT world. Critical
  physical infrastructure systems, like power and
  cooling, must be analyzed carefully and
  thoroughly. Configuration of the data center
  cooling system greatly affects systems
  availability.
• Therefore, design practices must keep current
  with new network and system architectures.
  Bringing an experienced design consultant
  on-board can help ensure companies deploy a data
  center cooling system that not only meets todays
  requirements, but can easily adapt to future
  infrastructures.

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About the Author

• Arnie W. Evdokimo is Chief Executive Officer of
  DP Air Corporation, a leading provider of data
  center design, build and maintenance services
  based in Phoenix, Arizona.
• For more information about data center cooling,
  visit http//www.dpair.com/data-center-cooling/
  today.