Data Center Cooling to Maintain Efficiency
Written by MovinCool
Data centers produce a lot of heat. This heat is produced from the thermal load of the servers, switches and other equipment. This heat load requires constant and efficient cooling. Generally, data centers use a metric called the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) to determine whether their energy efficiency is compliant to industry norms and adequate enough. A low PUE value is normally an indication of energy efficiency. For instance, a value of 2.0 means that for every watt of power needed, a watt of energy is used for cooling and to ensure power distribution within the data center. A low value of 1.0 means that energy is being efficiently used only for computing, thus showing high energy efficiency.
In order to maintain efficiency, regular maintenance of a data center server racks and equipment is required. For instance, cabinets that are not well aligned, tangled cables and dust will negatively impact cooling performance by disrupting airflow.
Environmental monitoring is also important to maintaining the efficiency of computer room air conditioner units. Any large deviations in temperature need to be monitored and addressed. Server rooms are also equipped with sensors to monitor humidity. The smallest changes in environmental variables can affect cooling.
Server room AC systems are aligned to form cold corridors and these ensure a constant temperature in the server rooms. This method also contributes to improving the air circulation going through blanking panels. When there are issues with rack level cooling, portable A/C units are ideal and can be setup to maintain the cold corridor concept.
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MovinCool specializes in AC units for various indoor and outdoor cooling needs including data center cooling.
