CONNECTIONS_65-e

Forecasts about the development of the Data Center market
the issues of carbon footprint, decarbonization
and power supply. These questions
have to be asked at all levels, from premises
and buildings to computer rooms and even
high-performance chips. In particular, data
center operators will be faced with new underlying
conditions in the form of extended
state norms and adapted industry standards
for data centers, the call for the recycling of
used raw materials, waste heat utilization
concepts for the surrounding buildings and
residents, and also increasingly the use of
renewable energy sources.
Spontaneous, fast, complex
Data center customers are having to act faster
and faster. Business models are adapted
or scaled. Digitalization gives companies the
opportunity to implement many things in a
short space of time. For security or competitive
reasons, they often release services, apps
and updates at short notice. Applications for
masses of end users, or complex applications
with a high workload for the servers are on
the agenda.
Data centers must therefore be responsive.
And they have to be able to provide scalable
infrastructures tailored to the customer
and project at short notice. Together with
customers, operators are making complex
decisions more often than ever before.
Understanding new customer applications
leads to an adapted conversion into new IT
equipment (such as servers and storage) and
its networking with corresponding switches.
If this equipment is to be integrated into an
efficient environment and perhaps even into
a partially existing infrastructure, there is more
to be done than just filling up free spaces in
existing IT cabinets. The increasing demand
for efficiency in the data center requires the
coordination of all sections of the infrastructure
in order to optimize the critical interaction
between compute and non-compute layers.
Would anyone have thought of this recently
with conventional planning focused on individual
sections? All plans have to be adjusted
to one another, and stand-alone solutions will
no longer meet the targets set in the future.
What that means for cooling
The challenges associated with cooling are
impressive. When the computer room was
first set up, all the amenities were perfectly
adjusted to each other: Cold aisles and hot
50 %
increase in the electrical footprint
of all data centers by 2025
500 %
growth of globally generated
data by 2025
Source: Schneider Electric
aisles, air flow, fans and cooling systems,
operating temperature of IT equipment, etc.
Servers with larger computing capacity are
now entering the computer room because
customers want to launch new, powerful digital
products. Suddenly something changes
as regards cooling. Fans are operating at full
speed on a permanent basis and consuming
more power. The cause has to be investigated,
and that no doubt means maintenance work,
in the worst case operational interruptions
and subsequent renovation work. Cable
bundles have to be laid differently so that
the air can flow optimally again.
If installations are equipped at maximum
capacity at the beginning of expansion, this
can lead to inefficiencies and even damage
to the system. Here, a simple example: A rack
was initially equipped with two blades, which
together had an output of 2 kW. But the cooling
system has already been configured for 20
kW or for fully equipped rack rows. Excessive
cooling changes the dew point. Moisture
accumulates. Certain systems stop when
there is too much cold or the cooling system
runs at a level that is too low, resulting in a
constant switching on and off. This can lead to
complete cooling system failure prematurely.
Some data centers take precautions by
proactively planning in headroom. In doing
so, they have to remember that cooling and
power supply must be adjusted to both the
reduced and the full IT load.
One possible solution for this would be
decentralized, modular inline and side cooling
units such as the BladeCooling units from
R&M Tecnosteel. They can be dimensioned
according to the respective computing
performance.
24 %
of Executives report that over 50 %
of their data centers will configure
themselves by 2025
75 %
of data will be processed in
edge data centers
Here, too, an interdependency would have
to be considered: The energy and space
requirements of the inline and side cooling
units must be taken into account when planning
the expansion. Once again, IT equipment
and operating temperatures, ventilators,
cooling system, containment and air routing
have to be coordinated with one another.
Blade cooling for heat loads from 4 to 42 kW
In-row cooling
030.7913
050.7363
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