Study Examines Impact of Power Outages on Data Centers
Commissioned by Active Power, the Data Center Emergency Cooling Study
examines the impact of a power outage in a data center environment and
the subsequent loss of cooling. According to a recent IDC report, 50
percent of businesses never recover after an outage and 90 percent go
out of business within two years, a fact that prompted the need for the
study. In the event of a power disruption, the ambient temperature can
rapidly increase since a power outage will usually force the data
center’s cooling system to shutdown. It typically takes two to three
minutes before full cooling capacity is restored and all cooling
systems cycle back on.
Opengate conducted studies on thermal runaways, a condition where
servers overheat and shut down. Active Power’s CoolAir technology was
also reviewed for its performance during power disruptions and its
ability to solve these thermal overload conditions.