Data center cooling and thermal management is on the forefront of everyone’s minds. Whether you want to call that data center a central office, as Verizon does, or a something else, it’s all about big computing centers housing hot equipment. So hot in fact that Verizon even issued VZ.TPR.9208, its own specification, to insure OEM equipment is thermally efficient.
Data center managers have a variety of strategies at their disposal to implement the best thermal management approach; one is creating a hot aisle/cold aisle setup. Processor magazine ran a terrific article on this topic that is well worth a read. Among their key points:
- Alternating hot aisles and cold aisles is essential to proper thermal management in a data center, as it’s crucial to measure air temperature at the server, storage, and network level as well as ambient temperatures.
- One size doesn’t fit all for hot and cold aisles, and what might work in one area may not in another, making planning an important part of implementation.
- The cost of a hot and cold aisle setup varies depending on complexity and size and could run to the tens of thousands of dollars if consultants and new equipment are involved. But in general, containment systems and gear such as thermal curtains can make a strategy more affordable.
The article does a good job of thinking through key points on how to use this approach effectively to effective thermal management and you can read it at this link at Processor Magazine: “Create A Hot Aisle/ Cold Aisle Setup”.