Data Centre Cooling - The Issues (Part 1)

With today's servers generating higher heat loads, keeping the Data Centre cool and operating efficiently has never been more important. Poorly cooled Data Centres often suffer from hot spots, which left unmanaged can result in equipment failure. Higher heat capacities generated by servers require more cooling capacity, but a lot can be done to improve Data Centre cooling before adding additional CRAC units. With A properly cooled Data Centre it will not only work more efficiently, but can also save valuable company funds.

So where to start. The first point of call is to switch to a proper Hot Aisle / Cold Aisle configuration, ensuring that all perforated or vented tiles are positioned in front of the server racks (in the cold aisle). Whilst the back of the racks face each other ensuring that no hot exhaust air is sucked into the air intakes on adjacent cabinets.The next step would be to ensure that all openings in the floor are permanently and effectively sealed to stop the cooled air from escaping (bypass air), doing so increases the under floor static pressure and reduces bypass airflow.

Cable openings should also be sealed with KoldLok raised floor grommets. KoldLok grommets are designed to seal cable openings in raised Data Centre floors. They feature dual layer brushes (except the Mini KoldLok) and filaments that are static dissipative. The KoldLok product range consists of eight specially designed grommets that seal various size openings in the raised floor.
By sealing each cable cut out you will save about 2kW of cooling!

In our next posting we will look at the importance of Blanking Panels. In the meantime if you would like to know more about the ways EDP Europe can help solve your airflow issues please e-mail us or vist our website at www.edpeurope.com.