Data Center Cooling A guide from: Your partners in UPS Monitoring Systems

Transcription

1 Data Center Cooling A guide from: Your partners in UPS Monitoring Systems

2 Making sure your data center stays cool is a challenge. As equipment becomes increasingly sophisticated and compact, data centers see their power draw rising above 500 watts per square foot. This increase in power consumption, density, and heat generation requires more sophisticated and efficient AC and humidity control systems to control the data center environment. Rising power consumption and temperatures has companies looking for more efficient ways to ensure their data centers stay cool. Liquid-cooled systems are increasing in popularity, whereby chilled water or liquid coolant is run through or around racks through sealed coils and mounted attachments. Also, data center managers now tend to arrange equipment in hot and cold aisle, a strategy that pits two sets of racks, facing toward each other, take in cool air through the front and exhaust it to the rear. These hot aisles, caused by the exhaust from the rear of two sets of racks, have air conditioners placed to take in the hot exhaust and release it back into the cooling system. Even with these new strategies, because each equipment rack houses different components at different power densities, power consumption and heat generation will be different throughout the data center. You will have cold spots and, more significantly, hot spots. Humidity will differ between your return air space and around hot equipment racks, and air flow has to be controlled between aisles. Once your data center has been setup and furnished with cooling and environmental control equipment, you'll have to monitor the data center to ensure that it stays within the appropriate temperature range. You can't simply leave your data center's environment unmonitored, or trust them to the individual systems that control that environment. If the environmental control device and reporting device are one in the same, if they fail together, you may not be alerted before a serious problem occurs. Because the environment will differ rack-to-rack, you'll have to monitor environmental factors in various areas of the room, areas where you're most likely to see high temperatures, poor air flow, or humidity fluctuation. Luckily, there are easy, relatively inexpensive ways to accomplish server room monitoring. The TempDefender and the NetGuardian series remotes are perfectly equipped to handle analog and discrete coverage within the data center, and can be quite a formidable combo, helping keep your data center's environment in check. The TempDefender allows you to monitor 16 analog sensors for temperature, humidity, air flow, etc. in series and up to 600 feet away. The NetGuardian remotes are equipped with a number of discrete alarms and analog sensors, making them perfect solutions for monitoring both temperature and equipment in individual cabinets. Either solution provides you with the alarm coverage to keep your data center in check. The TempDefender's 16 sensors can be strung together in any configuration from the four digital ports on the rear of the unit. You can chain TempDefender sensors together, placing sensors around the room at your hot and cold spots, in areas to measure air flow (in the hot aisles, where you'll want to make sure your air conditioning systems are sucking hot air out of the aisles), or in areas where air is most likely to condense.

3 For your analog sensors, you'll want to set alarm thresholds at just below or above optimum rates, so you can be aware of irregularities in your data center before they result in any harm or malfunction. For measuring temperature, you'll want to set thresholds at just above the air conditioning set point for that area. That way, if you receive a temperature alarm, you'll know it's because the air-conditioning system responsible for that area has malfunctioned. Setting thresholds low and responding to minor alarms in your data center ensures you'll have time to fix the problem before any harm can be done to your equipment, or you have to shut down equipment for fear of it overheating. Set an airflow sensor at the intake for your CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioner) units in hot aisles and set the minor threshold to just below the expected rate for air flow intake for your CRAC units. For humidity, set minor alarms for just inside acceptable humidity levels (38 and 52-53%, though values may vary for your equipment), and major alarms at just above acceptable humidity ranges. You'll also want to measure humidity from the air return space, so you can see, on a more general level, what sort of humidity levels you should be expecting in your data center. If, rather than using a data center monitoring solution like the TempDefender and, instead, using analogs attached to individual racks, the same general rules apply, but you'll want to adjust thresholds to fit each individual rack. Take into account the equipment on each rack, its operating conditions, and tolerances. TempDefender and the NetGuardian 216 can both notify you of environmental irregularities in your data center as they occur, so you can keep track of the environment inside your data center without staring at your monitor. In TempDefender and NetGuardian configurations, you can have SNMP traps reported to your master station, and progressive notifications sent to up to 8 technicians. notifications come with an acknowledgeable link, so you can let the NOC and your fellow technicians know that you're taking care of an alarm, right from your smart phone or wherever you can get your . When you receive alarms, by or trap, you can connect directly to the web interfaces for both the TempDefender and NetGuardian 216 to see reported values and operate relays, so you can take control of your data center from wherever you are.

4 About Data Center Cooling An introduction to Data Center Cooling Basics: Why the Data Center Heats Up What s being done to cool it down Why you need to monitor your data center Strategies for monitoring the data center

5 Data Center Cooling Challenges Maintaining temp, humidity, & air flow New equipment draws more power, generates more heat Uneven equipment distribution results in hot and cold zones Monitoring conditions in areas of the data center to ensure continued operation

6 Why you must monitor your Data Center High temperature damages equipment Air flow must be maintained in hot aisles to keep temp down Air must not be too dry or humid You can t trust monitoring to HVAC equipment Optimal temp, humidity, & air flow protects equipment

7 Strategies for Data Center Monitoring Central monitoring with RTUs Run sensors from one device Place sensors in data center extremes (hot spots) Individual rack monitoring Place an RTU with analog sensors in every aisle or rack Monitoring individual racks shows temp, humidity where it matters most Combine strategies

8 Sensor Placement & Thresholds Place sensors in data center s weak spots Set minor temperature alarm thresholds just above the set point for cooling systems (or the expected data center temperature) Place humidity sensors in the return air space Place air flow sensors near each hot-aisle CRAC unit to check hot-air exhaust systems.

9 Central Monitoring with TempDefender 1. Monitor up to 16 different conditions 2. Daisy-chain sensors up to 600 feet 3. Send SNMP Traps & notifications for alarms

10 Central Monitoring Device: TempDefender

11 Inline Monitoring: NetGuardian 216 G3 Monitor conditions per rack Use discrete contacts to monitor equipment failure Send SNMP Traps & for both analog alarms and discrete contacts Know if equipment alarms are fault of environmental conditions or otherwise

12 Inline Monitoring: NetGuardian 216 G3

13 Combine Both Solutions Monitor your whole data center TempDefender tracks HVAC equipment performance NetGuardian reports weaknesses in your data center cooling and environmental systems per rack Both report to your master station & send notification for alarms.

14 For Data Center Cooling & Monitoring Advice: DPS Telecom Monitoring reference site: Discuss your project: