Friday, March 20, 2020

Word of the Day: free cooling

Word of the Day WhatIs.com
Daily updates on the latest technology terms | March 20, 2020
free cooling

Free cooling is an approach to lowering the air temperature in a building or data center by using naturally cool air or water instead of mechanical refrigeration. In actual practice, free cooling is not entirely free, because pumps, fans and other air/water-handling equipment are needed, and that equipment also requires periodic repairs and maintenance.

The prevailing air at many latitudes and elevations can be considerably cooler during certain seasons and times of day than the air that is warmed by data center equipment. By filtering, humidifying and introducing cooler prevailing air directly into the data center, it is possible to reduce or eliminate the use of industrial-grade CRAC systems. Cooling systems that use this approach are sometimes called air-side economizers.

Alternatively, a source of cold water from local rivers, lakes or ocean sources can be circulated into a data center and used instead of undergoing the traditional method of refrigerating a closed water loop with a chiller. Systems using this approach are often called water-side economizers, which can either be used to cool room air or directly cool cabinets and other systems.

In both cases, the industrial cooling systems would only be needed when the outside air temperatures become too high for free cooling systems like air- or water-side economizers to be effective. Consequently, the working life of installed cooling systems can be significantly extended.

Reductions in cooling system use also mean drastic reductions in data center power consumption and service/repairs, lowering the energy and maintenance costs for facility owners. If prevailing conditions allow continuous use of air- or water-side economizers, the use of industrial data center cooling systems may be reduced on planet Earth or eliminated entirely in the case of sub-orbital data centers.

Quote of the Day

 
"As air-based cooling becomes too costly, some organizations are turning to natural resources as a way to cool data center hardware." - Paul Korzeniowski

Learning Center

 

Data center cooling systems advance, incorporate natural sources
Interest in water-based cooling and natural sources grows as organizations require more advanced data center cooling systems. This technology is still new but holds promise for effective cooling and environmentally friendly architectures.

Carbon Relay debuts AI-based software for data center cooling
Startup Carbon Relay introduced software that uses AI to improve data center energy efficiency through automation and integration of industrial systems with core IT assets.

Colo vendors, MSPs explore new data center cooling methods
Learn how colocation vendors and managed service providers are using nontraditional data center cooling methods such as evaporative cooling and liquid cooling.

Using free cooling in the data center
In this Q&A, an expert discusses the differences among free cooling technologies and explains when data center facilities will see a significant ROI using these approaches.

Improve data center efficiency with these 3 steps
In a recent IHS Markit webinar, networking experts discussed three steps to help enterprises improve data center efficiency. While intelligent rack PDUs and monitoring capabilities can assist with data center management, IT teams should also pay attention to temperatures and ghost servers.

Quiz Yourself

 
Because black absorbs light (which equates to heat) and white reflects it, white is a better option for data center _____.
a. roofs
b. rooves

Answer

Stay in Touch

 
For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com

Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed!

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