Future Facilities Announces New White Paper: The Benefits of Supply Air Temperat

ure Control in the Data Center

Using the Virtual Facility to illustrate the point, David King demonstrates the
considerable benefits of controlling air temperature on the supply of the air ha
ndler rather than the return. By doing so, temperatures being supplied to IT equ
ipment are more predictable, offering the potential for raised water temperature
s and reduced data center running costs.
London, UK, November 18, 2010 -- "Controlling temperature in the data center is
critical to achieving maximum uptime and efficiency," says David King, Consultan
t Engineer at Future Facilities. ( http://www.futurefacilities.com ) "But while
data center layouts have moved swiftly to segregate hot and cool airstreams, typ
ical air handler strategies are still rooted in the mainframe and comms room pri
nciples that have been in use since the last century."
The importance of airflow management and close temperature control has become in
creasingly evident as power and equipment density in the data center has risen.
Legacy cooling design strategies have proven unable to meet the cooling capacity
requirements of blades and other compact servers. But even as cooling system de
sign issues are addressed the question is raised as to whether temperature is be
ing controlled in the correct place to maximise efficiency and effectiveness.
Controlling the temperature in the data centre largely takes return air temperat
ure as an indication of the ambient air temperature in the space. It is often fo
rgotten that the purpose of cooling is to provide air of an acceptable temperatu
re and humidity to IT equipment at its inlet. It seems obvious then that return
air temperature is not an appropriate measure of the IT inlet temperature. Whils
t this is not a new idea, adoption of the strategy has been slow.
To model the thesis, a computer-generated Virtual Facility has been constructed.
The Virtual Facility is an accurate 3D representation of the data center, incor
porating ACUs, IT equipment, PDUs, racks and other familiar data center equipmen
t. Using Future Facilitiesâ ( http://www.futurefacilities.com ) 6SigmaDC software fo
r data center design and operation, CFD analysis of the space provides an accura
te account of the thermal performance of the facility layout. The benefit of mod
elling in real life is that decisions regarding equipment placement can be teste
d to ensure thermal effectiveness before any work is carried out in the data cen
ter, reducing risk to the load.
In "The Benefits of Supply Air Temperature Control in the Data Center", ( http:/
/www.futurefacilities.com/newsarticles/downloads/supplycontrol/supplycontrol_req
uest.htm ) a Virtual Facility is created for a typical 652m2 data center with 20
0 equipment racks, which is modelled under various load conditions. The Virtual
Facility is used to measure thermal efficiency and effectiveness when the coolin
g system is set up using return air control, and to test the improvements which
can be obtained controlling supply air temperature with a sensor in the supply a
ir stream.
The paper demonstrates that there are significant advantages switching to a supp
ly temperature control strategy. Since many modern cooling units are set up for
this approach, or can be modified very simply, the cost and control improvements
make a compelling argument for its implementation. The strategy is able to mana
ge an expanding IT estate, keeping server temperature within a tighter band and
enabling more predictable headroom between chilled water and supply air temperat
ure.
The potential for energy and running cost savings are facility-specific, and dat
a center managers are encouraged to contact Future Facilities to discuss how the
se can be modelled and maximized. For a copy of the new White Paper "The Benefit
s of Supply Air Temperature Control in the Data Center" or to find out more abou
t the Virtual Facility and 6SigmaDC data center design and operations software s
uite please visit http://www.futurefacilities.com or call Future Facilities on +
44 (0)207 840 9540.
About Future Facilities:
Future Facilities ( http://www.futurefacilities.com ) is a leading provider of p
owerful design, optimization and management software for mission critical facili
ties and data centers. The companyâ s solutions are applied to ensure all capacity, e
fficiency and reliability criteria are met throughout all phases of the facility
lifecycle.
For Further Information:
Hassan Moezzi
Future Facilities Limited
1 Salamanca Street
London SE1 7HX UK
hassan.moezzi@FutureFacilities.com
+44 (0) 20 7840 9540
http://www.futurefacilities.com
Press & Media Contact:
Damien Wells, Director
SPA Communications Limited
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Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1LJ UK
dwells@spacomms.co.uk
+44 (0) 7900 302102
http://www.spacomms.co.uk