Aisle containment and the environment

CREATING A GREENER ENVIRONMENT WITH AISLE CONTAINMENT

Cold aisle and hot aisle containment aid data centre cooling to drive energy efficiency and cost savings. These benefits are core to any data centre operator, but another benefit, which is advantageous to the general public, is the fact that aisle containment systems reduce carbon footprint. As it’s World Environment Day today, Friday 5^th June, we thought it’d be a good day to highlight the greener benefits of aisle containment systems.

HOW AISLE CONTAINMENT SYSTEMS WORK

Aisle containment systems work by optimising existing data centre cooling systems. By managing streams of cold and hot air through the creation of an aisle enclosure, a ‘pod’ around the data centre aisle, the air-conditioning unit (ACU) within the data centre doesn’t need to work as hard to cool down the data centre, meaning less energy is consumed. Managing airflow in a data centre is important as lots of hot air is generated from server exhausts, meaning it takes the air-conditioning unit a lot of effort to cool down the data centre aisle.

WHAT DOES AISLE CONTAINMENT MEAN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?

Data centres consume mass amounts of energy, some using the same amount of electric that could power a small city. In this respect, any reduction in energy consumption is a pro for the environment. Hot and cold aisle containment systems reduce the carbon footprint of data centres by reducing energy required for data centre cooling. With aisle containment, power usage effectiveness measurements can be significantly improved.