cooling
SENSIBLE SELECTION
Rik Williams of Node 4 looks at the issues around data centre cooling
and advises how to choose the right system.
D
ata centres are the
lifeblood of cloud
based businesses
today, so creating
the optimum
operating environment is critical.
While advances in technology
mean hardware is becoming
more tolerant of higher supply air
temperature, cooling remains an
essential consideration to ensure the
data centre operates in the correct
environmental window, 24/7.
Data centre cooling is a mature
market and there are proven
technologies in this space with
widespread adoption. Technically,
22
there will be a solution you can deploy,
but finding the right one for your
particular data centre isn’t that easy.
Balancing cooling capacity, capex,
opex, efficiency, control, redundancy
and maintainability is a challenge that
is different for every project.
The complexities of data
centre cooling
The technical, financial and
environmental variables associated
with data centre cooling make it a
complicated business. For instance,
a future government may move
goalposts on green taxation, which
could mean a good solution now will
become much less attractive – and
compliant – in the years to come.
For colocation providers, flexibility
can be the critical issue, as the range
of customer equipment in data centres
and the unpredictability of power
density can further complicate things.
A lot of the practical challenges
related to data centre cooling come
from physical building constraints, for
example, where insufficient outdoor
spacing can cause poor airflow. Moving
an entire data centre to accommodate
the best choice of cooling system
isn’t an option. But the result is a
restriction in the choice of solution
and, most likely, a compromise.