Step 4: Environmental concerns

By Bernie Klinder, Consultant 28 Feb 2005 | SearchWinSystems.com

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Servers generate a lot of heat and are sensitive to high temperatures and fluctuations in humidity. A stable environment can improve uptime and extend the life of your hardware. An ideal environmental control system should be modular, expandable and flexible.

AIRFLOW CHECKLIST

DON'T use shelves in your

racks. Shelves trap heat

and restrict air flow.

DON'T use glass doors, which

can trap heat and reduce

air flow through the rack.

Use fully vented doors,

or remove the doors entirely.

DO use blanking panels to

close off open spaces in

racks. These open spaces

create traps for hot air within

the rack and reduce air flow.

DO perform your own tests

on fan trays and roof fans to

decide if they are worth the

expense. They are common,

but some critics say they

provide little benefit for the

electricity they use.

DO make sure your racks

are deep enough to allow air

flow around cables, which can

obstruct ventilation and cause

overheating.

DO place racks in rows and

reverse the direction of how

alternate rows face. This

helps separate the hot

exhaust air from the intake

air. The front of a rack

should never be facing the

back of another rack.

DO space out high-capacity

racks, which can generate

tremendous amounts of heat

and increase power

requirements.

Air temperature is an important consideration. Your air conditioning capacity will depend on the size of your room, lighting, number of people working in the room, quantity of electrical equipment and the heat generated by that equipment. In short, you'll need to determine the total load power in watts generated by all of these devices in order to determine their thermal output.

Environmental engineering can determine cooling requirements based on these factors, as exact calculation methods are beyond the scope of this paper. If possible, build redundancy and overcapacity into the environmental systems to allow for failures, maintenance downtime and temporary capacity spikes.

Air flow in and around server racks is crucial, and you'll need to work with your environmental engineering department to work out the best solution in terms of air conditioning types, duct placement and ceiling vs. floor-mounted ventilation.

Be on the lookout for hotspots and stagnant air flow. Temperature and humidity sensors can be placed throughout a data center to monitor conditions, but there are several simple steps you can take to improve airflow.

Another important element to consider is the level of humidity. Low humidity levels increase the risk of static electricity, and high amounts of relative humidity can contribute to corrosion as well as lowering the heat removal capacity of your equipment. The relative humidity in a data center should generally be kept between 40-55 percent.

ASHRAE publishes specific guidelines for data centers and server rooms (http://www.ashrae.org).

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HOW TO DESIGN A SERVER ROOM

 Home: Introduction
 Step 1: Determine size requirements
 Step 2: Reserve a location
 Step 3: Power Requirements
 Step 4: Environmental concerns
 Step 5: Rack solutions and cable management
 Step 6: Flooring: choice of materials matter
 Step 7: Security
 Step 8: Finalize the layout

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