hot/cold aisle

Hot/cold aisle (or hot aisle/cold aisle) is a method of cooling servers in data centers in which every aisle between rows of racks is bounded with exclusively hot-air outlets or exclusively cool-air intakes. Air is brought into the cool aisles from underneath and exhausted from the hot aisles overhead. This produces constant air circulation through the racks, provided there are no "holes" through which cool air can leak without encountering hardware.

In a hot/cold aisle configuration, the hot aisles are always at a much higher temperature than the cool aisles. Equipment racks are arranged in parallel rows. Air flows generally upward throughout the center with a constant "breeze" through each row. For optimum design, internal fans that bring air into or exhaust it out of individual units should be disabled or configured to act with, not against, the overall pattern of air flow in the center.

Read more about hot/cold aisle: - Robert Sullivan describes hot/cold aisle technology. - The U.S. Department of Energy provides a clear illustration of hot/cold aisle geometry. - SearchDataCenter.com discusses cooling strategies for data centers.

Do you have something to add to this definition? Let us know. Send your comments to techterms@whatis.com

Digg This!     StumbleUpon     Del.icio.us

RELATED CONTENT Virgin builds data center from scratch on Verari blades Virgin America prevented data center buildout with Verari Systems BladeRack 2XT blade servers, along with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, water-chilled... ADC data center aiming for 1.1 PUE, LEED Platinum Advanced Data Centers is building a data center with a power usage effectiveness value of 1.1. In the process, ADC may achieve LEED Platinum status as... Oracle CIO details new Utah data center at LinuxWorld/Next Generation Data Center This month, Oracle breaks ground on a 200,000-square-foot data center in Utah. Oracle's CIO outlined the facility's resources at LinuxWorld/Next...

RELATED GLOSSARY TERMS Terms from Whatis.com − the technology online dictionary ambient temperature  (SearchDataCenter.com) ASHRAE  (SearchDataCenter.com)