Proponents of liquid cooling acknowledge that installing water cooling in a data center requires thoughtful planning for older data centers, but at Purdue University’s HPC, the integration of liquid cooling with its existing air cooling system met the data center’s density and growth needs in both a cost- and performance- efficient way. Purdue turned to liquid cooling using Coolcentric’s rear door heat exchangers and Cooling Distribution Units (CDUs).

Skeptics question if liquid cooling can offer the same redundancy and availability as a traditional CRAH cooled data center. An answer to this question is found in a recent White Paper by Purdue University’s data center management.

Purdue’s data center is configured in a way such that each CDU serves Rear Door Heat Exchangers installed on non-contiguous server racks. To test whether the implementation had the redundancy and availability needed for high availability applications, Purdue and Coolcentric conducted a study that examined if, in the event of a CDU failure, the remaining CDUs could provide reliable cooling for the data center and provide continued availability.

The study found that use of CDU technology not only provided the redundancy and availability needed for its data center, it also demonstrated that CDU technology represents a heat removal paradigm that requires less energy than traditional air conditioning methods.

Read the full white paper > Simulated Failure Analysis of a Distributed Liquid Cooled Data Center

“We have the fans really cranked up in here.”

“What?”

“I said we have the fans…”

You can already imagine the comical progression of that conversation.

Unfortunately this is not uncommon.  Data centers are far from the peaceful calm of a library, and talking with others there is usually frustrating if not downright painful.  In some high performance data centers, close-coupled cooling units often exacerbate the problem further. Typical overhead, or in-row style cooling units capture air from the hot aisle, and successfully direct lots of fan noise right in the face of technicians working there.  Many data centers I have visited have implemented hearing conservation programs because the ambient sound level within the data center exceeds the OSHA action level of 85dBA for noise exposure.

Occupational Noise Exposure via osha.gov

Having to stock ear plugs at the door and enforce additional safety policies is a hassle and added expense. If you could cool your servers and not have to scream to be heard – wouldn’t you?

If you are building a new data center you could consider air side economizer designs that move the fan systems outside the data center, like Facebook’s Open Compute data center in Oregon.

via DataCenterKnowledge.com

But for those of us that must live within our existing facility, retrofitting with a passive cooling solution can be the answer. For example, the Coolcentric Rear Door Heat Exchanger (RDHx) sits directly in the exhaust air stream of the rack mounted servers, so it doesn’t need fans to move air. No fans means no noise, and a quieter, more people-friendly data center.

Can you hear it now?

via www.energystar.gov

Because the economy has slowed energy consumption growth in other areas, the percentage of total power consumed by DC’s has more than likely increased substantially since 2006.  With our dependence on foreign sources of energy, and the need to reduce carbon emissions, the amount of power consumed by data centers is simply too big to ignore.  While electronic component manufacturers continually look to balance higher functionality with lower power trends, the lower hanging fruit available for reducing data center power is in its infrastructure.

via www.energystar.gov

To understand the amount of power that could be freed up from data centers, consider this:  if data centers today, consume 120 billion kWh of power per year, and half of that is used to cool and manage the power, what would the impact be if we could reduce that 60 billion kWh of power and cooling by half?   Well, that 30 billion kWh savings could power 5 million households…. That’s 5% of all U.S. households.

Demands for data are insatiable right now.  Data center owners and operators are racing to add capacity.  Now’s the time to build this capacity in the right way and pay attention to utilization, efficiencies, and energy consumption.  We can’t afford not to.

Ok, perhaps a stretch – but not completely without basis.

The advent and use of GPUs, many-core processors, and higher latency speed, continues to accelerate the increasing power draw of these energy hungry machines. From the cooling side, “You want to run 35,000 watts per cabinet, great! We have a cooling door for that!”

What strikes me each and every time, is what those 35,000 watts are being used for… it’s an awful lot of bang for your buck. Lists like The Green500 are a tremendous resource to put it into perspective for us non-IT initiates. My most recent jaw-dropper was in consideration of the K Computer still under construction for RIKEN in Japan.

via Fujitsu.com

Currently 672 cabinets are drawing 9.89MW (think 131,866 light bulbs from your home). Broken down to an incredibly granular level by the Green500 – the K Computer is able to run 824,500,600 calculations per second…per watt. Thinking light bulbs again; for the energy is takes to turn on my desk lamp, this system can perform 61,842,000,000 calculations.

Suddenly the importance of having my office lit seems paled in comparison.

All said and done, the K Computer can currently throw together about 8.2 quadrillion calculations per second….and it’s still under construction. What could that amount of computing be used for? Cancer studies? Replicating nuclear detonation without the detonation? Brain mapping? Star mapping?

If Isaac Asimov were around; maybe we’d look at applying psychohistory algorithms to determine where the human race is headed for the next thousand years (and what course corrections might be needed).

It’s an amazing time to be working in the IT space, if only just looking from the outside in. I’m not the scientist generating the complex theorems, or the programming genius who drives the system with purpose…I am the guy who helps design the facility to keep the IT cool.

When I look for a feeling of involvement on the cutting edge I try to remember that without me, all that equipment would be is very expensive pieces of melted silicone and burnt out chips.

Now where did I put that next Sci-Fi novel…should be mandatory reading these days…

The accompanying vision is one of massive new data center facilities consuming megawatts of power and footprint.

This may not be too far off the mark considering a projection from Pike Research that worldwide cloud computing revenue will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8% between now and 2015. The Cloud market overall is expected to grow from $46.0 billion in 2009 to $210.3 billion 2015. But much of the impact here, positive or negative, depends on what other computing solutions are displaced as a result.

All indicators are that innovation and economies of scale are making the cloud the most efficient deployment of IT resources devised to date. The Pike Research study also indicates that cloud computing will result in a 29% reduction in green house gas emissions by 2020, verses 2010 business-as-usual practices.

Here at Coolcentric we have a unique window into the adoption of new DC technologies and what drives the decision makers.

If what we are seeing from the current adopters of energy efficient technologies in the data center is any indicator, IT planners focused on dense computing and scalability will become a major force in the overall reduction of energy consumed for computing. Decisions on technology and ultimate adoption are thought through carefully. Owners of small to medium enterprise in-house data centers can often realize the same benefit. However, when computing services themselves are the source of revenue, attention to efficiency takes a front seat. Here, the economies of scale and willingness to deviate from entrenched practices to achieve the benefit are more likely to come into play.

Image via Pike Research

Coolcentric produces a solution that can lower the overall consumption of power for cooling inside the data center by up to 90% (ref. Silicon Valley Group 2010 Chill-off study) and reduces footprint by up to 8x conventional deployments. Assuming that a % change in power consumption correlates 1 for 1 with GHG emissions; if all facilities adopted liquid cooling tomorrow, we would collectively recognize a dramatic improvement in efficiency on DC total power, achieving nearly 50% of the Pike Research analysis. Further implementation of complimentary free cooling techniques would realize gains approaching the best expectations of the study.

A significant focus for IBM has been energy conservation. IBM’s goal was to achieve a 3.5% energy savings. But in 2010, IBM exceeded that goal and delivered energy savings of 5.7% of its total energy use. In addition to the obvious cost savings — $29.7 million in energy expense – IBM avoided consuming 272,000 megawatt hours (MWh) and 352,000 million BTUs of fuel oil and natural gas which translates into avoidance of 139,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions.

A very important part of those savings were derived from data center operations. In fact, over 10% of the realized energy and cost savings came from existing data centers.

New data center construction uses “state-of-the-art technologies and are designed to operate at PUE of 1.4 when fully populated with IT equipment. The new data centers are designed to accommodate high density IT equipment and utilize free cooling, variable speed fans and pumping systems. They also have the capability to install direct liquid cool systems on high-power density equipment… ”

A new super efficient data center at Syracuse University, where Coolcentric Rear Door Heat Exchangers (RDHx) provide liquid  cooling to efficiently cool high-density racks, is showcased in the report. Take a tour with Chris Sedore, VP and CIO at Syracuse University and learn more about the innovative technologies that allow the Syracuse University data center to consume half the normal energy.

Read the full Corporate Responsibility Report >

At the same time, Secretary Mabus emphasized that the solution here has to be reached in ways that do not require wholesale change-out of all the equipment now deployed. Retrofit is key – because full replacement of the hundreds of thousands of deployed pieces of equipment is not realistic any time soon. Generally this means drop-in replacement fuels and, in the near term, improving efficiency with minimally invasive retrofits. In operating dollars, every $1 increase in the price of a barrel of oil costs the Navy an extra $30M. As a result, the largest single user of energy in the US has a goal to cut its fossil fuel consumption 50% by 2020.

James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA, spoke at the conference as well; reminding us that the US consumes 25% of the world’s oil, yet possesses only 3% of the world’s reserves. He noted that in the last 4 months 6 of the 13 member nations of OPEC, which controls 80% of the world’s crude oil reserves, have experienced some form of social unrest, further placing US oil imports at risk.

These straightforward numbers help illustrate why the military is leading the drive on ways to save energy.

Image via DataCenterDynamics.com

One instrumental approach is innovations in IT infrastructure. In a 2008 blog post the Wall Street Journal mentioned that 85% of the Army’s diesel hauled up to forward areas is used to cool troops and computers. Portable modular data centers are containerized versions of the traditional brick and mortar type that we are more familiar with. Outfitted with power, cooling and remote monitoring, these containerized data centers are capable of increasing compute capacity and reducing energy consumption at the same time. Often housed in specially modified ISO shipping containers, these modules are readily deployable to unimproved environments and highly cost effective. Innovative space and power saving solutions, like the super efficient rack mounted liquid cooling provided by Coolcentric is one aspect that enables up to 50% energy savings verses traditional data center deployments. Translated to amount of oil running diesel generators, annual savings is about 3,000 barrels of oil per year just for 1 container. Coupled with the benefit of being able to readily retrofit to existing infrastructure, the majority of which is consuming more power year over year, it is clear why adoption of liquid cooling for IT is steadily growing.

Attaining energy independence and security is a game of inches. However, some solutions, like innovative IT cooling, can be yard gainers.

Several years of implementing our highly efficient cooling solutions worldwide, into some of the most advanced data center environments, has provided Coolcentric the opportunity to build upon its already substantial experience helping customers achieve energy, cost and white-space efficiencies.  That experience has also allowed unique insight into the evolving trends and decision processes around short- and long-term data center strategies and operations.

Through regular blog posts from members of our executive management, research, customer support and sales team, we will share experiences, industry trends, break-through developments,  and some of our collective “tribal knowledge” that will be of interest to those in the IT and Data Center planning world.   Likewise, we want to foster an active dialogue with many of you who spend time thinking about improving Data Center efficiency.

Please visit often.   We look forward to your comments!