Understanding the Challenges: Why Airflow Management is Crucial in Data Centers

Is your data centre operating efficiently? The energy consumption of data centres is on the rise, leading to negative impacts on the environment and increased costs. To mitigate these effects and improve data centre efficiency, it’s essential to explore methods for reducing energy consumption and boosting savings. This article will delve into one such method: airflow management by implementing hot and cold aisle containment. Before discussing the solution and its benefits, let’s first examine the existing issues.

Energy Consumption

The IT industry is facing significant pressure to decrease its energy usage. Currently, the industry as a whole accounts for approximately 2% of the world’s total energy consumption. The global emissions from cloud computing alone range from 2.5% to 3.7% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, surpassing emissions from commercial flights (around 2.4%) and other vital activities that drive our global economy.

In 2008, the EU implemented the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres as a response to the rising energy consumption and its environmental impact. The primary goal of this code is to motivate data centre operators to decrease their energy usage by enhancing their knowledge of energy demand within the data centre. It also provides recommendations for energy-efficient practices in the Best Practices Guidelines.

Data Centre Cooling

The increasing energy demands of data centres are causing them to become more costly and less stable to operate. In the near future, the energy required to cool IT equipment will surpass the energy needed to power the system itself. Cooling the data centre often accounts for the highest energy loss in the facility, presenting a significant opportunity for efficiency improvements. It is a common misconception that increasing the supply air temperature will ensure optimal conditions, but this approach is inefficient, expensive, and leads to higher energy usage. There exist various methods for cooling data centres that can enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize energy consumption.

Airflow Management

Monitoring airflow is an important initial step in optimising data centre cooling. The objective of airflow management is to circulate only the necessary amount of air through the data centre, preventing air recirculation and the bypass of airflow. Poor airflow management can reduce cooling unit air supply temperatures, or lead to a supply of excessive air volumes, resulting in an increase in energy consumption. Crucial to effective and efficient data centre operation, good airflow management cuts costs by reducing the volume of cooled air that needs to be supplied, and will also improve the temperature distribution across the cabinets.

Aisle Containment

Aisle containment is widely recognised as the leading solution for enhancing airflow management in data centres. This innovative system effectively separates hot exhaust air from cold supply air, thus minimising the loss of cold air and expelling hot air to maximise data centre efficiency. There are two primary types of aisle containment: Hot Aisle Containment (HAC) and Cold Aisle Containment (CAC). HAC is designed to confine the hot air, while CAC encloses the cold aisle. Both approaches offer numerous benefits, including cost-effectiveness, a compelling return on investment (ROI), enhanced power usage effectiveness (PUE), reduced carbon emissions, prolonged life of IT equipment, and increased energy efficiency.

Cross-Guard

Cross-Guard brings over 15 years of expertise in crafting and delivering aisle containment solutions for data centres across the globe. Our tailored HAC and CAC products are designed to be highly adaptable, fit seamlessly into any cabinet, and can be easily adjusted or reinstalled to meet changing needs. Our aisle containment systems not only ensure security and segregation of client areas but also offer various fire safety options and come with a choice of sliding doors, hinged doors, and PVC curtains. A case study conducted after the installation of cold aisle containment in a Digital Realty data centre demonstrated significant improvements in power usage effectiveness (PUE), with PUE dropping from 1.85 to 1.55 and IT load increasing from 250kW to 550kW within the suite. Based on this data, we anticipate annual savings of £118,500, with a return on investment expected within 5 months!