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Technology giant Cisco is standing by the data center simulation tool it has used to design the air flow system in the data center housed at its San Jose, Calif., campus. According to the tool’s manufacturer, the product enabled the customer to save more than $100,000 per year in energy costs generated by the facility.
Cisco used the Virtual Facility tool designed by Future Facilities to create a data center simulation it used to place perforated floor tiles and blanking panels within the 7,000-square-foot data center that draws 770 kW of power (a total of 1 MW of power is available) and has a cooling capacity of 820 kW.
The facility first became operational in 1999 and its total yearly energy bill has been $1.4 million, including $660,000 for cooling energy costs and $707,000 to power the IT equipment.
A key issue in the data center was recirculation of some exhaust air within cabinets, resulting in higher inlet temperatures. To compensate, the facility’s managers were overcooling the chilled-water system. The VF solution was used to strategically place perforated tiles and blanking panels to eliminate hot spots within the facility.
The Virtual Facility tool enables the user to create a virtual 3D model of their data center, simulating space and power and cooling dynamics within it: “thermal interactions between the room infrastructure, cooling system, cabinets and individual units of IT equipment,” according to a Future Facilities statement.
By separating supply and return air and by using the simulator to guide air movement around the data center, Cisco Engineering Manager Chris Noland was able to increase the chilled-water set point by eight degrees Fahrenheit and as a result achieved a reduction in power requirements, which translated into $120,000 in energy cost savings.
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Keywords: Cisco, Virtual Facility, Future Facilities, data center energy efficiency, data center cooling, air flow, data center thermal dynamics, raised floor, chilled water, chiller, overall temperature, hot spots | |
