cooling door

page 10 and 11 of <http://www.panduit.com/products/brochures/105309.pdf>
 says
there's a way to move 20kW of heat away from a rack if your
normal CRAC is
moving 10kW (it depends on that basic air flow), permitting
six blade servers
in a rack.  panduit licensed this tech from IBM a couple of
years ago.  i am
intrigued by the possible drop in total energy cost per
delivered kW, though
in practice most datacenters can't get enough utility and
backup power to run
at this density.  if "cooling doors" were to take
off, we'd see data centers
partitioned off and converted to cubicles.
-- 
Paul Vixie

At 3:17 PM +0000 3/29/08, Paul Vixie wrote:
>page 10 and 11 of <http://www.panduit.com/products/brochures/105309.pdf>
 says
>there's a way to move 20kW of heat away from a rack if
your normal CRAC is
>moving 10kW (it depends on that basic air flow),
permitting six blade servers
>in a rack.  panduit licensed this tech from IBM a couple
of years ago.  i am
>intrigued by the possible drop in total energy cost per
delivered kW, though
>in practice most datacenters can't get enough utility
and backup power to run
>at this density.

While the chilled water door will provide higher equipment
density per rack, it relies on water piping back to a
"Cooling
Distribution Unit" (CDU) which is in the corner sitting
by your
CRAC/CRAH units.  Whether this is actually more efficient
depends quite a bit on the (omitted) specifications for
that
unit...    I know that it would have to be quite a bit
before
many folks would: 1) introduce another cooling system
(with all the necessary redundancy), and 2) put pressurized
water in the immediate vicinity of any computer equipment.

/John

On Sat, 29 Mar 2008, John Curran wrote:

> unit...    I know that it would have to be quite a bit
before
> many folks would: 1) introduce another cooling system
> (with all the necessary redundancy), and 2) put
pressurized
> water in the immediate vicinity of any computer
equipment.

What could possibly go wrong?  
If it leaks, you get the added benefits of conductive and
evaporative 
cooling.

------------------------------------------------------------
----------
  Jon Lewis                   |  I route
  Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
  Atlantic Net                |
_________ http://www.lewis.org
/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________

On 29 Mar 2008, Paul Vixie wrote:

> 
> page 10 and 11 of <http://www.panduit.com/products/brochures/105309.pdf>

> says there's a way to move 20kW of heat away from a
rack if your normal
> CRAC is moving 10kW (it depends on that basic air
flow), permitting six
> blade servers in a rack.  panduit licensed this tech
from IBM a couple
> of years ago.  i am intrigued by the possible drop in
total energy cost
> per delivered kW, though in practice most datacenters
can't get enough
> utility and backup power to run at this density.  if
"cooling doors"
> were to take off, we'd see data centers partitioned off
and converted to
> cubicles.
Can someone please, pretty please with sugar on top, explain
the point
behind high power density? 


Raw real estate is cheap (basically, nearly free).
Increasing power
density per sqft will *not* decrease cost, beyond 100W/sqft,
the real
estate costs are a tiny portion of total cost. Moving enough
air to cool
400 (or, in your case, 2000) watts per square foot is
*hard*.

I've started to recently price things as "cost per
square amp". (That is,
1A power, conditioned, delivered to the customer rack and
cooled). Space
is really irrelevant - to me, as colo provider, whether I
have 100A going
into a single rack or 5 racks, is irrelevant. In fact, my
*costs*
(including real estate) are likely to be lower when the load
is spread
over 5 racks. Similarly, to a customer, all they care about
is getting
their gear online, and can care less whether it needs to be
in 1 rack or
in 5 racks.

To rephrase vijay, "what is the problem being
solved"?

[not speaking as mlc anything]

> Can someone please, pretty please with sugar on top,
explain 
> the point behind high power density? 

It allows you to market your operation as a "data
center". If
you spread it out to reduce power density, then the logical

conclusion is to use multiple physical locations. At that
point
you are no longer centralized.

In any case, a lot of people are now questioning the
traditional
data center model from various angles. The time is ripe for
a 
paradigm change. My theory is that the new paradigm will be
centrally
managed, because there is only so much expertise to go
around. But
the racks will be physically distributed, in virtually every
office 
building, because some things need to be close to local
users. The
high speed fibre in Metro Area Networks will tie it all
together
with the result that for many applications, it won't matter
where
the servers are. Note that the Google MapReduce, Amazon EC2,
Haddoop
trend will make it much easier to place an application
without
worrying about the exact locations of the physical servers.

Back in the old days, small ISPs set up PoPs by finding a
closet 
in the back room of a local store to set up modem banks. In
the 21st
century folks will be looking for corporate data centers
with room
for a rack or two of multicore CPUs running XEN, and
Opensolaris
SANs running ZFS/raidz providing iSCSI targets to the XEN
VMs.

--Michael Dillon

At 02:11 PM 3/29/2008, Alex Pilosov wrote:
>Can someone please, pretty please with sugar on top,
explain the point
>behind high power density?

More equipment in your existing space means more revenue and
more profit.

>Raw real estate is cheap (basically, nearly free).
Increasing power
>density per sqft will *not* decrease cost, beyond
100W/sqft, the real
>estate costs are a tiny portion of total cost. Moving
enough air to cool
>400 (or, in your case, 2000) watts per square foot is
*hard*.

It depends on where you are located, but I understand what
you are 
saying. However, the space is the cheap part. Installing the

electrical power, switchgear, ATS gear, Gensets, UPS units,
power 
distribution, cable/fiber distribution, connectivity to the

datacenter, core and distribution routers/switches are all
basically 
stepped incremental costs. If you can leverage the existing
floor 
infrastructure then you maximize the return on your
investment.

>I've started to recently price things as "cost per
square amp". (That is,
>1A power, conditioned, delivered to the customer rack
and cooled). Space
>is really irrelevant - to me, as colo provider, whether
I have 100A going
>into a single rack or 5 racks, is irrelevant. In fact,
my *costs*
>(including real estate) are likely to be lower when the
load is spread
>over 5 racks. Similarly, to a customer, all they care
about is getting
>their gear online, and can care less whether it needs to
be in 1 rack or
>in 5 racks.

I don't disagree with what you have written above, but if
you can get 
100A into all 5 racks (and cool it!), then you have five
times the 
revenue with the same fixed infrastructure costs (with the
exception 
of a bit more power, GenSet, UPS and cooling, but the rest
of my 
costs stay the same.)

>To rephrase vijay, "what is the problem being
solved"?

For us in our datacenters, the problem being solved is
getting as 
much return out of our investment as possible.

-Robert



Tellurian Networks - Global Hosting Solutions Since 1995
http://www.tellurian.com
| 888-TELLURIAN | 973-300-9211
"Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin
Franklin

Perhaps this is apropos:

      Linkname: Slashdot | Iceland Woos Data Centers As
Power Costs Soar
           URL: http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/03/29/23312
18.shtml

On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 23:29:18PM -0400, Robert Boyle
wrote:
> 
> At 02:11 PM 3/29/2008, Alex Pilosov wrote:
> >Can someone please, pretty please with sugar on
top, explain the point
> >behind high power density?
> 
> More equipment in your existing space means more
revenue and more profit.
> 
> >Raw real estate is cheap (basically,
nearly free). Increasing power
> >density per sqft will *not* decrease cost, beyond
100W/sqft, the real
> >estate costs are a tiny portion of total cost.
Moving enough air to cool
> >400 (or, in your case, 2000) watts per square foot
is *hard*.
> 
> It depends on where you are located, but I understand
what you are 
> saying. However, the space is the cheap part.
Installing the 
> electrical power, switchgear, ATS gear, Gensets, UPS
units, power 
> distribution, cable/fiber distribution, connectivity to
the 
> datacenter, core and distribution routers/switches are
all basically 
> stepped incremental costs. If you can leverage the
existing floor 
> infrastructure then you maximize the return on your
investment.
> 
> >I've started to recently price things as "cost
per square amp". (That is,
> >1A power, conditioned, delivered to the customer
rack and cooled). Space
> >is really irrelevant - to me, as colo provider,
whether I have 100A going
> >into a single rack or 5 racks, is irrelevant. In
fact, my *costs*
> >(including real estate) are likely to be lower when
the load is spread
> >over 5 racks. Similarly, to a customer, all they
care about is getting
> >their gear online, and can care less whether it
needs to be in 1 rack or
> >in 5 racks.
> 
> I don't disagree with what you have written above, but
if you can get 
> 100A into all 5 racks (and cool it!), then you have
five times the 
> revenue with the same fixed infrastructure costs (with
the exception 
> of a bit more power, GenSet, UPS and cooling, but the
rest of my 
> costs stay the same.)

-- 
Henry Yen                                       Aegis
Information Systems, Inc.
Senior Systems Programmer                       Hicksville,
New York

On 3/29/08, Alex Pilosov <alexpilosoft.com> wrote:
>
> Can someone please, pretty please with sugar on top,
explain the point
>  behind high power density?
>
>  Raw real estate is cheap (basically, nearly free).
Increasing power
>  density per sqft will *not* decrease cost, beyond
100W/sqft, the real
>  estate costs are a tiny portion of total cost. Moving
enough air to cool
>  400 (or, in your case, 2000) watts per square foot is
*hard*.
>
>  I've started to recently price things as "cost
per square amp". (That is,
>  1A power, conditioned, delivered to the customer rack
and cooled). Space
>  is really irrelevant - to me, as colo provider,
whether I have 100A going
>  into a single rack or 5 racks, is irrelevant. In fact,
my *costs*
>  (including real estate) are likely to be lower when
the load is spread
>  over 5 racks. Similarly, to a customer, all they care
about is getting
>  their gear online, and can care less whether it needs
to be in 1 rack or
>  in 5 racks.
>
>  To rephrase vijay, "what is the problem being
solved"?

I have not yet found a way to split the ~10kw power/cooling
demand of a T1600 across 5 racks.  Yes, when I want to put
a pair of them into an exchange point, I can lease 10
racks,
put T1600s in two of them, and leave the other 8 empty; but
that hasn't helped either me the customer or the exchange
point provider; they've had to burn more real
estate for empty
racks that can never be filled, I'm paying for floor space
in my
cage that I'm probably going to end up using for storage
rather
than just have it go to waste, and we still have the problem
of
two very hot spots that need relatively 'point' cooling
solutions.

There are very specific cases where high density power and
cooling cannot simply be spread out over more space; thus,
research into areas like this is still very valuable.

Matt

> I have a need for a 1U that will just act as a backup
(higher MX) mailserver
> and, occasionally, deliver some large .iso images at
under 10Mbit/Sec ....
> 
And I'm sure that there are other technically saavy users
just like me
> that could help you out with this "surplus"
space!  

see http://www.vix.com/p
ersonalcolo/ for some places to host that backup MX.
(note, i have no business affiliation with any of the
entities listed there.)