Future Facilities Inc. will unveil Release 11 of its 6SigmaDCX software suite at Datacenter Dynamics’ Enterprise conference in New York City, March 14 – 15, 2017. Future Facilities will be displaying the enhancements in the latest release of its data center simulation software, along with a variety of other solutions, at booth #60. Release 11 includes the launch of 6SigmaAccces, a multi-user web-based product designed specifically to streamline IT deployment. 6SigmaAccess is connected to Future Facilities’ Engineering Simulation engine, which allows teams to gain insight into the impact of IT being deployed into the Data Center before any physical installation takes place.
The desktop applications within DCX 11 deliver over 200 enhancements over DCX 10. The solver engine has been tuned to offer 2x speed up across all number of cores. This coupled with fully automated cloud solving through Rescale offers unlimited, flexible and scalable compute power.
Additionally, connectivity to the wider data center community is delivered through integrations with Cormant-CS as well as The Green Grid’s (TGG) Performance Indicator (PI). Integration with the PI enables end users to visualize their facility’s performance against using three key metrics: IT Thermal Conformance, IT Thermal Resilience and PUE Ratio.
“6SigmaDCX is a powerful and intuitive modeling and simulation tool that has been tailored for data center staff that don’t have extensive backgrounds in thermal design,” said Sherman Ikemoto, Director of Future Facilities (North America). “Release 11 includes a robust list of enhancements that increase the versatility and functionality of the software suite. The result is a greater capability to predict and analyze events in the data center before deploying IT equipment and critical infrastructure, which is a major advantage in preventing downtime and loss of capital.”
User Interface - including a new Attach window, the ability to approximate with library items during import, the addition of hover-over manipulator cursors, file locking in shared locations, protected placement properties for specific objects, a confirmation window when deleting objects, and the ability to exclude unwanted items from all of the software’s ribbons, in addition to the fully customizable Home ribbon.
Model Creation and Manipulation
Release 11 includes a variety of improvements to the sketching of cables, pipes and ducts (routes), making it faster and easier to draw these objects. New junction objects and branch buttons provide greater flexibility in the drawing of routes within the model, while more intuitive sketching logic helps make drawing faster and more accurate.
Solution
Improved levels of control for endusers over the solving process. The maximum number of grid cells available have been increased, allowing for models to be solved up to 700 million cells. Additionally, 6SigmaDCX now allows for separate saving of simulation and field data for Transient Models (such as during a cooling failure analysis).
New, Updated, or Removed Model Objects
Several new objects have been added to Release 11, others have been updated, and some have been removed from the suite. Additionally, endusers can now model hollow cooling ducts. Most importantly, the suite allows for the creation of a simplified cabinet object so that IT equipment can be ignored during solver calculations.
Results Data
The way in which solved models appear, and the options that endusers have to display the results and create new views and reports, have all been enhanced in Release 11 of 6SigmaDCX. In addition, results reporting has been expanded and mean pressure is now reported on result faces and vents.
