by Nigel Hilton
If you utilize servers at your business then it is imperative to have a solid cooling strategy in place. Networks can easily overheat when used. This can lead to your servers breaking to the point where they are beyond repair. Not only will this be extremely costly for you, but you could end up losing key data as well. To ensure this doesn’t happen all you need to do is have an effective cooling strategy in place. That is what this article is here to help you with. Keep on reading for some top tips on ensuring your server racks stay as cool as possible.
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One key feature of your cooling strategy should be load spreading. As you may have gathered by the name; this involves spreading your servers across multiple racks rather than having them all closely spaced in the same enclosure. The idea is that by doing this you will never exceed the greatest rack power density in relation to the cooling system being utilised. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind the fact that by segregating your load in this way you are generating more unused vertical space. Because of this, you need to remember that this space has to be occupied with blanking panels. This is important to ensure that cooling performance does not degrade.
In addition to this, another part of your strategy should revolve around creating dedicated high density areas. IT consulting companies like Genesys can assist with providing advice on this. You need to segregate an area of the room for high cooling capacity. After all, if you were to do this for the entire room then it would be largely inefficient and highly costly. So provide a special area and ensure that this location is limited to servers of a high density only. This will require you to have knowledge regarding what racks have high density enclosures and which do not. Thus, this is something you will want to bear in mind when you are putting your strategy together.
Aside from this, another option to bear in mind at your business is called rules based borrow cooling. What is this? Well essentially you will give the room the ability to power and cool to an average value which will be lower than the peak enclosure value. You will then use the rules to let high density racks use neighbouring underutilised cooling capacity. This is extremely efficient because not all racks draw more power than the average design value and therefore the energy will be shared.
These are the three main points you should bear in mind when you are putting together a cooling strategy for your server racks. Of course everything needs to be considered in relation to your room, your servers and your budget specifically. You may also want to look into supplemental methods of cooling. There are lots of different accessories and products available on the market to aid with this. Temperature monitoring equipment is always recommended. You may think you are providing the optimum environment for your servers but you cannot possibly be sure unless you are monitoring the situation effectively.
