Sweating in the "Cold" aisle! Oh, and hot aisle too.

Over at DatacenterDynamics, Bill Kosik has a nice analysis of the impact of higher server inlet temperatures on the safety of the employees working in the data center. Some of us have already experienced data centers at the forefront of the increasing of "cold" aisle temperatures. Auxiliary cooling means such as cooling vests need to be planned for when considering higher inlet temperatures. The benefits of higher tempertures is plain when considering efficiency, but education is key for moving outside the "ice-box".

Comments

[Dave Larson]

In today’s energy efficiency driven world some people are pushing the envelope to minimize energy consumption as fast as possible, and sometimes they are “throwing switches and pulling levers” before they truly understand the holistic impact of their actions on reliability, system robustness and everyday livability for the people who work in the space. When you take the time to understand the different factors at play, you can then make intelligent decisions to get the biggest “bang for your buck”, or biggest “wow for each pull of your lever”.

For example, people are running out and containing their hot aisles because it increases the return air temperatures to their air conditioners, which boosts their operating efficiencies. However, as Kosik points out, a 100+ degree hot aisle is no fun to work in for very long; let alone safe. So if you look at the big picture and factor in the people, and what if a hot aisle door is left open, and what if a blanking plate is missing, concerns with fire code sprinkler systems, and oh-by-the-way, priority one of a data center is conditioning the servers you recognize that other solutions; such as cold aisle containment (CAC), may be a better solution that yields significant energy savings as well. And once you take the time to understand CAC you learn that you can get over 70% of the benefit of full CAC by just installing the aisle doors, you have arrived at an energy efficient, user friendly, and cost effective solution that boosts system robustness and IT gear reliability.

Taking this a step further, many companies today are making products that are flexible and change with the data center like Emerson’s infinitely adjustable CAC system and Liebert iCOM SmartAisle control system which monitors environmental conditions at each server rack to control power and cooling infrastructure efficiently, while ensuring the IT equipment is receiving the correct amount of cold air and conditioned power.

For more information on this topic, I recommend reading this white paper from Emerson Network Power: http://bit.ly/o7VgH9