There’s no denying that data centers play a very important role in storing information. But as useful as they are, data centers come with many costs and they take a lot to maintain.
For example, the power density of a data center is 100 times more than that of a large commercial office building and is equivalent to nine shopping malls about the size of Wal-Mart. With all that power being used, keeping the temperature stable is paramount.
More than 65% of IT equipment failures are directly attributed to inadequate, poorly maintained or failed air conditioning in the server room. When the cooling system isn’t working, there could be dire consequences. The A/C costs of an average server room with about 30 KW of air conditioning operating at 70% capacity with an average cost of 12.7 c/kWh will be $23,000pa and 243 tons of green-house gas will be produced.
One way for data centers to avoid major IT problems is by using hot or cold aisle containment system. Hot or cold aisle layout for types of server racks and other equipment works by setting up whatever types of server racks a center has in alternating rows. In this configuration, cold air intakes face one way and hot air exhausts face the other way, setting up hot and cold aisles. Cold aisles usually face air conditioner ducts and hot aisles usually face air conditioner return ducts.
Another option for data centers is immersion cooling. In fact, the Global Data Center Liquid Cooling Market could reach as much as $4.5 billion by 2023.
What exactly is immersion cooling? Simply put, it’s a way to cool down computers where electronic components and servers are submerged in a dielectric liquid that’s thermally conductive. These liquids are clean, non-flammable and eco-friendly.
For data centers, there are plenty of advantages to using immersion cooling:
- It can lead to higher efficiency as well as energy savings. Immersing servers in liquid has been shown to improve cooling capacity, the design of data centers and rack density. It can also add to a company’s bottom line by reducing server energy up to 20%.
- It helps data centers reduce their operational and capital expenses.
- As previously mentioned, it is an eco-friendly process and green cooling solutions can have a positive effect on a data center’s electronics.
- It works everywhere, whether in wide open data centers or cramped, hot spaces.
- It works with any size or shape of electronics, electronic components or data center servers.
- It improves the reliability and the performance of the hardware used in data centers.
There are many benefits of immersion cooling and companies and data centers using it to preserve their electronics will find it improves the reliability of their equipment, cuts down on energy costs and improves the efficiency with which people can do their jobs.
