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The following content is from an older version of this website, and may not display correctly.One of the new models of Ice Cube data center containers IT vendor SGI recently announced uses an adiabatic cooling system ÔÇô an evaporative-cooling technology the company says is new in the context of containers. The technology makes it unnecessary to use chilled water and dramatically reduces the amount of water required to cool a containerized data center.
SGI says the amount of water required to cool this particular model is only one percent of the amount required to cool one of its containers of comparable size that uses chilled water. A typical garden hose would be sufficient, according to an SGI news release.
While evaporative cooling has been used in data center designs for some time now (one of the most recent examples is Facebook's new data center that is currently under construction in Prineville, Ore.) and even longer in residential buildings, this is the first time SGI has used the technology in a container and its Chief Engineer Tim McCann said he was unaware of any other data center container makers that used adiabatic cooling in their products.
Of the six new Ice Cube models the company announced on May 26, only one uses the adiabatic-cooling technology: the 20 ft Universal IC2008UA. The rest have typical chilled-water cooling systems. "This is a new technology and what we need to do is kind of walk before we can run," McCann said in an interview. Having been one of the pioneers in the containerized data center market, SGI is now looking for means to drive the PUE of its solutions "closer to 'unity.' That's the holy grail, right?"
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The entire adiabatic cooler is about one meter wide;as long and as tall as the container itself. It is placed inside the box, against its left wall. Outside air enters the cooler through intake louvres that comprise between 20 percent and 25 percent of the left wall. Fans then push it through a device that looks similar to a furnace filter. Made of a variety of media, the filter is designed to maximize area of the surface the air goes through. This surface is wet and the water evaporates as the air goes through it, cooling the air in the process. The cooling of air as it helps the water it comes into contact with evaporate is the adiabatic process.
Once cooled, the air gets delivered to the IT racks and cools the gear before getting expelled through hot-air discharge louvres along the right wall of the Ice Cube.
Target temperature range for air that gets delivered to the IT equipment is between 23 C and 32 C (between 73 F and 90 F). When outside air temperature is within the allowable range, it does not go through the adiabatic process and only gets filtered before being delivered to the front of the racks.
"Along with the temperature, the humidity range we're trying to (maintain) is between 23 and 70 percent relative humidity inside the cold aisle," McCann said.
"If you were to walk in the cold aisle, you're going to find it to be very similar to data centers that are running on the higher end of the range of set-points for ambient supply air."
The cooling system adjusts the amount of evaporative cooling it uses automatically, depending on the temperature and humidity of outside air. There are multiple temperature and humidity sensors throughout the unit. If outside air temperature is below the bottom end of the required range, the system is capable of re-circulating some of the hot exhaust air and using it to bring the in-coming air to a desired temperature.
A programmable control system uses actuators to control the water valve, louvres, dampers and other components to switch between multiple control modes designed to correspond to varying weather conditions.
OUTSIDE-AIR HUMIDITY MAY BE A DEAL BREAKER
One caveat about adiabatic cooling systems is they may not be appropriate for extremely humid environments. "(In) locations that are very humid, you're going to limit the ability to cool that air," McCann said. An adiabatic cooler's ability to bring down dry-bulb temperature of the air it expels depends substantially on wet-bulb temperature of the air coming in. Thus, a key consideration for a customer looking to deploy the container will be moisture content of air at the location for which the solution is being considered.
Data centers inside shipping containers came on the market around spring of 2007. Along with SGI, Sun was another one of early providers of the solution. Most major server manufacturers have since created their own version of the data center container, including HP, IBM and Dell. Smaller companies have also released containers. These players include Verari, Bull and, most recently, Green Data Systems.
Customers use the product for its mobility and speed of deployment. One of the most common problems companies call on containers to solve is data center capacity overspill, however, some of the largest enterprises, namely Microsoft and Google, have chosen to fill entire data centers with rows upon rows of containers.
Very little actual sales figures for containers have been released by vendors, who generally hold these numbers close to their chests. An IDC analyst recently told IDG News Service she expected only 84 containers to be sold in 2010.
SGI says the amount of water required to cool this particular model is only one percent of the amount required to cool one of its containers of comparable size that uses chilled water. A typical garden hose would be sufficient, according to an SGI news release.
While evaporative cooling has been used in data center designs for some time now (one of the most recent examples is Facebook's new data center that is currently under construction in Prineville, Ore.) and even longer in residential buildings, this is the first time SGI has used the technology in a container and its Chief Engineer Tim McCann said he was unaware of any other data center container makers that used adiabatic cooling in their products.
Of the six new Ice Cube models the company announced on May 26, only one uses the adiabatic-cooling technology: the 20 ft Universal IC2008UA. The rest have typical chilled-water cooling systems. "This is a new technology and what we need to do is kind of walk before we can run," McCann said in an interview. Having been one of the pioneers in the containerized data center market, SGI is now looking for means to drive the PUE of its solutions "closer to 'unity.' That's the holy grail, right?"
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The entire adiabatic cooler is about one meter wide;as long and as tall as the container itself. It is placed inside the box, against its left wall. Outside air enters the cooler through intake louvres that comprise between 20 percent and 25 percent of the left wall. Fans then push it through a device that looks similar to a furnace filter. Made of a variety of media, the filter is designed to maximize area of the surface the air goes through. This surface is wet and the water evaporates as the air goes through it, cooling the air in the process. The cooling of air as it helps the water it comes into contact with evaporate is the adiabatic process.
Once cooled, the air gets delivered to the IT racks and cools the gear before getting expelled through hot-air discharge louvres along the right wall of the Ice Cube.
Target temperature range for air that gets delivered to the IT equipment is between 23 C and 32 C (between 73 F and 90 F). When outside air temperature is within the allowable range, it does not go through the adiabatic process and only gets filtered before being delivered to the front of the racks.
"Along with the temperature, the humidity range we're trying to (maintain) is between 23 and 70 percent relative humidity inside the cold aisle," McCann said.
"If you were to walk in the cold aisle, you're going to find it to be very similar to data centers that are running on the higher end of the range of set-points for ambient supply air."
The cooling system adjusts the amount of evaporative cooling it uses automatically, depending on the temperature and humidity of outside air. There are multiple temperature and humidity sensors throughout the unit. If outside air temperature is below the bottom end of the required range, the system is capable of re-circulating some of the hot exhaust air and using it to bring the in-coming air to a desired temperature.
A programmable control system uses actuators to control the water valve, louvres, dampers and other components to switch between multiple control modes designed to correspond to varying weather conditions.
OUTSIDE-AIR HUMIDITY MAY BE A DEAL BREAKER
One caveat about adiabatic cooling systems is they may not be appropriate for extremely humid environments. "(In) locations that are very humid, you're going to limit the ability to cool that air," McCann said. An adiabatic cooler's ability to bring down dry-bulb temperature of the air it expels depends substantially on wet-bulb temperature of the air coming in. Thus, a key consideration for a customer looking to deploy the container will be moisture content of air at the location for which the solution is being considered.
Data centers inside shipping containers came on the market around spring of 2007. Along with SGI, Sun was another one of early providers of the solution. Most major server manufacturers have since created their own version of the data center container, including HP, IBM and Dell. Smaller companies have also released containers. These players include Verari, Bull and, most recently, Green Data Systems.
Customers use the product for its mobility and speed of deployment. One of the most common problems companies call on containers to solve is data center capacity overspill, however, some of the largest enterprises, namely Microsoft and Google, have chosen to fill entire data centers with rows upon rows of containers.
Very little actual sales figures for containers have been released by vendors, who generally hold these numbers close to their chests. An IDC analyst recently told IDG News Service she expected only 84 containers to be sold in 2010.