Five Smart Best Practices for achieving optimal cooling performance and up to 60 percent energy savings in the data centre

THE PORTION OF THE ENERGY COSTS of a data centre accounts for approximately 20 percent of the total operating costs of an enterprise. Up to 40 percent of the total energy costs of any given data centre are incurred through cooling. So optimising the cooling in the most cost-effective, simplest manner and within a short return of investment period would be a sensible course of action. This increase in efficiency can be achieved by adhering to the following five best practices:

1

 

Thermal & airflow analysis
Any improvement should start with a careful detection of thermal weaknesses. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the airflow both above and below the raised floor to identify bypass airflow, cold air losses and hot spots at the cabinet level. Based on the findings, it is possible to compile a list of techniques and solutions that allow you to reduce a large amount of energy costs and to improve the PUE in the data centre.
2

Sealing openings in the raised floor
Up to 60 percent of conditioned air is lost through cable openings in the raised floor. Simply by sealing these openings with a brush grommet significantly increases cooling efficiency, prevents hot spots and protects servers in the cabinets against downtime caused by overheating.

3

Sealing openings in the front of 19“ cabinets
Sealing free vertical and horizontal space at the front of cabinets prevents the recirculation of hot exhaust air travelling to the front of the cabinet server intake.

Blanking panels are an ideal and inexpensive solution maintaining a physical barrier so cold conditioned air at the front of the cabinet is separated from the hot air at the rear.

4

Optimise the cold airflow under the raised floor
Within the raised floor plenum, it is important to guide the conditioned air to the server rack intake in the cold aisle. By directing the conditioned airflow through baffled channels, cooled air is kept to a minimum in unused areas but increased where it is needed, resulting in a reduced overall volume of the plenum and so, increased static pressure.

The result, less capacity of the cooling units is required reducing energy requirements and costs.
5

Cold aisle containment
According to most data centre experts the containment of the cold aisle is the most efficient way to increase cooling efficiency: The cold air intake area at the cabinet front is hermetically separated from the hot air at the rear of the racks. Only the aisle between the front of the racks has to be cooled and no longer the whole data centre. This simple separation of hot and cold air helps to realise energy savings of up to 30 percent and more, whilst eliminating hot spots and reducing hardware failures.
Daxten, well known for its CoolControl products for improving Data Centre energy efficiency, offers a full range of best practice solutions, on site data centre assessments and other methods to optimise the airflow, cooling and power infrastructure in existing and new data centre environments. For further information please contact Daxten on +44 (0)20 8991 6200, info.uk@daxten.com or visit www.daxten.com/uk/. Or visit Data Centre World 2014 in London, on the 26th and 27th February at the DAXTEN stand G60.