Data center facility managers grapple with the persistent challenge of accommodating the escalating demand for mechanical and electrical (M&E) capacity necessary to sustain the proliferation of high-density IT equipment.
By implementing air containment systems, facility managers can optimize their existing air conditioning infrastructure, effectively directing airflow to where it’s needed most.
This approach not only enhances cooling efficiency but also contributes to energy savings and improved equipment reliability.
Furthermore, air containment facilitates better control over airflow patterns, minimizing the risk of hot spots and ensuring uniform temperature distribution across the data center environment.
Classic data centre design incorporates the concept of hot and cold aisles in order to better direct cold air from the air conditioning system to the input side of the IT equipment.
Air Containment is an engineered solution that fully separates hot exhaust and cold input air flows within the data centre white space, preventing significant quantities of the cold air bypassing equipment cabinets and returning mixed with the hot air to the CRAC units. Typically unwanted mixture is compensated for by running the air conditioning system at a lower temperature than would otherwise be required, using scarce capacity and incurring avoidable significant additional energy cost.
There are essentially two different approaches based on either containing the hot aisles or the cold aisles in the data centre.
The industry continues to debate the relative efficiency benefits from each option. In reality, the approach you take should be dependent on your own specific business drivers and objectives in relation to your current data centre situation. Nubis empowers its clients with the necessary facts to make an informed decision. Nevertheless, if you plan to design and commission a new data centre facility with new IT equipment you have more options available to you to achieve air flow separation. To significantly improve the effectiveness of a current data centre requires a solution that can be easily retro-fitted. Nubis is able to provide this with extremely cost effective options that are rapid and non-disruptive to install and maintain.
By increasing air pressure in the cold aisle and not allowing hot air to mix in, Air Containment also has the potential to reduce the risk of IT service failure in two key ways: