Cold Corridors for a new generation of data centres

Data centre manufacturer Minkels, European producer of integrated solutions for data centre cooling, housing, power distribution and data centre monitoring, has released a white paper in which all ins and outs of the Next Generation Cold Corridors® and Free Standing Cold Corridors® are discussed. The white paper helps data centre managers, data centre owners, architects and consultants in selecting the optimal Cold Corridor® concept.

In order to separate hot and cold airflows in an energy-efficient manner, Cold Corridors are installed in many data centres. “Research by our R&D department has shown that with Cold Corridors, energy savings of up to 40 percent can be reached”, states Niek van der Pas, Strategic Product Designer Data Centres with Minkels and author of a white paper entitled ‘Cold Corridors for a new generation of data centres; Flexible, modular & optimally integrated’.

Optimisation of cooling and energy-efficiency, however, are not the only challenges present in modern data centres, as research conducted by Pb7 Research and commissioned by Minkels also shows. Increasingly, data centre managers and owners are being confronted with a high rate of change in the data centre, housings with abnormal dimensions and the need to integrate sensors for, for example, management of the data centre and for various cooling systems.

Continuous innovation
The presented challenges require Cold Corridor solutions which offer a higher flexibility and modularity, as well as more integration options. With the Next Generation Cold Corridor and the Free Standing Cold Corridor, Minkels offers data centre managers and owners ‘future proof’ solutions which offer flexibility and modularity to be able to anticipate the high dynamic of the data centre of today. Through the continuous innovation, furthermore, data centres are capable of even more energy-efficient operation than was possible with the traditional Cold Corridors, partly because of optimal integration of, for example, sensors for management and the cooling techniques that are being applied within the data centre.

The Free Standing Cold Corridor is Minkels’ Product Development department’s newest innovation and recently honoured with a Frost & Sullivan’s 2015 New Product Innovation Award. The Free Standing Cold Corridor is recognised as a ground breaking solution in terms of modularity and flexibility. The award complements the fact that Minkels’ innovative aisle containment concept, the Next Generation Cold Corridor, was granted the ‘2013 European Frost & Sullivan Award.’

Whereas the Next Generation Cold Corridor uses the cabinets to support its construction, the Free Standing Cold Corridor is a fully self-carrying aisle containment design with which closed corridors which are independent from the cabinets can be created. Because of this, an initial investment in cabinets is not required, and a pay-as-you-grow model for energy-efficient separation of hot and cold airflows is offered. Immediately after implementation, the Free Standing Cold Corridor has an energy-efficiency equal to a regular Cold Corridor design with data centre cabinets.

Organised installation
“With the Next Generation Cold Corridor and the Free Standing Cold Corridor Minkels offers flexible and modular cold containment solutions that integrate with different types of data centre cooling, make the data centre management easier and also provide an organised installation because there are no more unintegrated pieces of equipment in the room.” Van der Pas concludes. “With this, Minkels offers the best scenario for every situation. Which scenario eventually will be chosen depends strongly on the demands that are asked of the Cold Corridor, as is discussed in our new white paper.”