There are two main things you'll have to check to ensure that your CRAC units are working properly and keeping your computer room cool. And since there's no guarantee of homogenized equipment across the computer room, it's likely that you'll have hot and cold spots. Even if they're working, there's no guarantee that the cool air they pump into the environment is making it to your equipment. Of course, monitoring the quality of the air conditioning in the computer room means much more than simply monitoring the CRAC unit components themselves.
Bringing in more hot return-air helps the heat exchangers in the CRAC units produce colder air to pump out to the computer room floor.Ī diagram of the hot-cold aisle strategy for computer room air conditioning Monitoring Devices for Your Modern Computer Room This works for your computer room by removing hot air from the data center. Hot air escapes into the plenum to be pushed back into the system, below the floor, where it can be cooled and released back into the system. To keep the whole computer room cool, technicians advocate turning the area above racks into a hot air plenum by placing ducts and more CRAC units. It's even become common to take advantage of the space above computers and racks and make another "hot aisle" of the room's ceiling, where heat normally escapes and hovers. In this way, a CRAC unit air handler can keep cool air running through the system and help keep a steady airflow through the environment. Computer room air conditioning units on the floor then pull in the hot air exhausted into the hot aisles, and release it underneath the floor tiles, completing the cycle. The CRAC cooling system pumps cool air through perforated floor tiles between the racks, the computers and racks intake the cool air and exhaust hot air into the opposing hot aisle. They place their computers and racks on raised floors, two tiles apart, with their air intakes facing each other. To achieve an effective computer air conditioning system, many technicians are placing racks in hot and cold configurations. Cool air distribution must occur to ensure that heat is displaced. Simply turning the thermostat down doesn't offer the cooling you need to safeguard your equipment.
Hot air is generated by computer room equipment quickly. Now, however, that proves to be a feeble way to cool your computer room.
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Simply pumping cold air in the room was enough of a cooling solution to bring down the temperature.ĭownload the HVAC Monitoring Tutorial PDF When data centers were using less power and generating less heat per square foot, a technician or administrator could simply offset the heat from equipment with additional CRAC units.
The increase in computer room power consumption, density, and heat generation requires a more exact approach to a computer or IT room air conditioning design than ever before.Ĭomputer equipment room or data center cooling used to be a relatively painless affair.
As the equipment in your computer room becomes more complex and compact, computer rooms are watching their power draw and heat generation quickly rise.
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How to Monitor the Air Conditioning in Your Computer RoomĬomputer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) are cooling units for computer rooms.