Data centers are growing in size and diversity as they become increasingly crucial to the global IT infrastructure. Data center operators are under greater pressure to reduce their facilities' energy consumption as urban expansion and climate change requires them to reduce their carbon footprint.
Efficient and effective cooling systems are more critical than ever. They can mean the difference between a contemporary data center and a dinosaur prone to outages.
Data center cooling was a sunk expense back in the day. Companies spend a lot of money on air conditioning devices to keep their server rooms cool. These facilities have the highest power use efficiency (PUE). It is more effective to install as many as six space heaters in your house.
However, efficient cooling of data centers has gotten greater attention in the last decade. This is sensible, as keeping a data center facility at the proper temperature might assist in accounting for this. Its overall power requirements might be as high as 40%.
However, many data centers are advised to run these facilities at a lower temperature than this to prevent the possibility of malfunctions or overheating, which can contribute to these facilities consuming so much electricity.
CRAC
We have tried to discuss each strategy's advantages and disadvantages, an abbreviation for Computer Room Air Conditioner. It is an advancement over the standard cooling system used to keep server rooms cool. CRAC removes hot air from the server room and replaces it with cool air. It functions similarly to a household AC unit, except it monitors and adjusts humidity and air dispersion. Although it may appear weird, the recommended humidity range for data center servers is 20% to 80%. This helps to decrease electrostatic discharge.
CRAC cooling systems use perforated floor tiles to distribute cold air between racks and computers. The cold air is drawn in by the racks and computers, while the hot air is expelled into the opposite heated aisle. Floor air conditioners in computer rooms draw hot air from the heated aisles and release it beneath the floor tiles to complete the cycle, according to a study.
CRAC unit air handlers can chill the air passing through the system and keep it consistent throughout the environment.
Content From The Hot Aisle
Hot aisle containment, as noted briefly above, is a method of orienting server racks to the right. Its low-cost, high-return cooling system is quite popular. Instead of cooling the whole server room, the technology allows operators to strategically deploy CRAC units in certain regions and chill only those areas.
Heat Extraction In The Rack
This is the first modern design that enhances hot aisle containment. A rack of servers only requires the cooling of a portion of the room. Heat is extracted directly from servers by in-rack heat extractors and pumped outdoors. Chimneys and compressors are then used to cool the gear within the rack. This strategy has one significant drawback: it decreases computing density per rack, requiring you to pack less power on a single floor.
Cooling Via Evaporation
Another prominent approach is the evaporation of water into the atmosphere. Evaporative cooling operates on the premise that water must be heated to change from liquid to vapor. This heat is eliminated from the remaining liquid water, resulting in a colder liquid.
Cooling Via Immersion In Liquid
One of the most intriguing and cutting-edge data center cooling solutions is liquid immersion. Although water-cooled racks for data centers offer a high power efficiency, the risk of water damage to computer equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars has kept them from being widely used.
Liquid immersion cooling employs a dielectric coolant fluid to heat server components. Dielectric fluid has the potential to come into direct touch with electrical components such as CPUs, drives, and memory. It will not harm anything.
Running liquid coolant through heated portions of servers and transferring heat to heat exchangers is hundreds of times more efficient than utilizing massive CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning) units.
