The demand for energy efficiency is driving advances in today’s information technology and critical facilities systems. High-performance, low-energy servers and storage and network devices are now being supported by closely-coupled air and water cooling systems and redundant alternating and direct current power systems…all in the same rack. Leading data center operators are integrating innovative MEP solutions into today’s plug-and-play racks and server environments that provide operating efficiencies and flexibilities never before conceived.
On October 14, 2010, the Data Center Energy Efficiency Summit celebrated its third successful gathering at Brocade Communications in Santa Clara, CA. Over 500 attendees witnessed the results of the much-anticipated Chill Off 2, which looked at exactly these issues of bringing IT and facilities solutions closer together.
Chill Off 2 is the second such competition organized by Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) and Data Center Pulse. This time, they set up several close-coupled cooling technologies side-by-side in a test environment and put them through their paces. Eleven rack level and aisle-containment computer cooling technologies were tested, energy efficiency comparison metrics were developed and used, and quantitative comparisons were made.
Twelve different vendors submitted entries that were subjected to test conditions so all categories of technology would perform in conditions of roughly equivalent conditions, regardless of whether they used chilled water or chilled water and refrigerant.
Although free cooling with outside air may often be the most energy efficient method of all, it was not considered in this contest because it utilizes a very different a method of heat rejection and because it can be used in conjunction with each of the other methods tested.
Here is a good explanation of the types of closely coupled cooling systems that the Chill Off considers to be worthy of their tests.
Rack Coolers. Rittal (LCP+), Knürr (CoolLoop, CoolTherm), and APC (InRow RC with RACS) provided samples of this technology, which is an enclosure system for a small number of racks that blocks hot server exhaust air from entering the computer room.
Row Coolers. Liebert (XDH, XDV) and APC (InRow RC with HACS) entered technology that is placed directly adjacent to computer racks either horizontally or above the racks, gathers exhaust air from the rear of the rack, cools the air, and returns the cooled air near the server air inlet.
Rear Door Coolers. Vette (RDHX), IBM (Rear Door iDataPlex), SUN (SUN Glacier), and Liebert (XDR Passive Rear Door) offered a technology that cools hot air as it exits the IT equipment racks via heat exchangers in the place of the rack rear door and returns cooled air into the computer room using only server fans to move the air.
Direct Touch Coolers. Clustered Systems brought in a unique prototype device that cools hot electronic components located inside rack-mounted IT equipment, directly utilizing conduction and refrigerant phase change to cool equipment.
Modular Datacenters. Oracle (Previously SUN Microsystems) set up an independent container type data center that was tested using the same models of servers as the other tests.
Dean Nelson and Brian Day of Data Center Pulse provide a great video tour and explanation of these technologies at http://www.datacenterpulse.org/TheChillOff. The Data Center Pulse has published more videos on its website and on YouTube, and these are also available on the Mission Critical website.