There are many different types of data racks that a data center may choose to employ but no matter which of the many types of data racks a data center ultimately chooses, types of data racks are important for keeping your typical data center running smoothly and without any issues.
Data centers are common all around the United States, but it is important for a well functioning data center to not only employ different types of data racks but to stay as up to date as possible. Once a data center has reached seven years of age, it is typically considered time for it to be updated. Once a data center reaches nine years old, if it has not been updated it will not survive for very long. These standards are decided by Green Computing norms. As data centers age, they become less and less environmentally friendly.
It is easy for a data center to waste energy. Fortunately some types of data racks such as thermal containment systems can help to prevent this excessive waste. Hot and cold containment units prevent servers in a server room from overheating. This means that whatever air conditioning system a data center employs does not need to work so hard to cool a server room, thus cutting down on energy use. Not only does this save energy, but cuts down the cost of the data center’s monthly energy bill as well. Because of these reasons, nearly all (around eighty percent) of data centers employ hot or cold aisle containment systems. If they do not already use them, the majority of data centers are looking into them with serious consideration.
And there is a lot of energy used and power produced in just one data center. To put it in more plain terms, a typically functioning data center will generate enough power to fully supply power to as many as nine mini shopping malls. In other terms, the over all power density of a data center is many times the density of your average large commercial building used for office space, generating as much as one hundred times of the power of the office building.
Because of this, the costs of keeping the average server room in a data center the correct temperature can be a hard job to maintain. Thus, air conditioning systems in data centers are often overworked. In fact, one of the most common causes for server failure is that of a malfunctioning or shut down air conditioning system. Even when working right, working an air conditioning system too hard has a number of negative side affects. For instance, if an air conditioning system is running at just seventy percent capacity, the cost over the course of a year will be more than twenty thousand dollars. And not only is there a monetary cost – the cost for the environment is considerable too, as more than two hundred tonnes of green house gasses will be emitted into the atmosphere.
Fortunately, the implementation of a hot or cold aisle containment system can often help to reduce the severity of these problems. With a hot or cold aisle containment system, an air conditioning unit in a server room will not need to operate at such a high capacity as the servers will be able to better regulate their own temperature. This will have a profound impact on the environmental footprint of the data center as a whole as well as the amount of money that they spend on their monthly energy bill.
