TECHNICAL
Benefits of efficient datacentre cooling
This award-winning technology offers the highest energy efficiency of IT environments. A single 1U fan consumes about 12 watts at full power. A fan assembly usually consists of two fans. 1U servers often require at least four of these assemblies across the width of the chassis and additional fans for the power supplies. This adds up to about 120 watts. With low powered servers, this is up to 45% of the energy footprint. Any air-cooled IT equipment requires air circulation. In servers, this consumes between 6% and 45% of the total energy footprint. 1U servers with average CPU power with good utilisation (i.e. 80W per CPU) often end up with the highest fan overhead. Larger servers (2-5U) have larger fans which consume less energy, but these servers take up a lot more space in a rack which makes the rack less effective. This fan overhead and space limitation is eliminated with immersion cooling, as the server fans are removed.
On a performance level, there is a huge density benefit. Immersion cooling enables much higher compute density compared to traditional air-cooling methods. Since the dielectric liquid can dissipate heat more efficiently than air, this enables high in-tank server density. Furthermore, tanks can be packed more closely together than racks in a smaller space, increasing the amount of compute housed in that area. Trust and reliability are key when adopting an innovative technology. The last few years have seen this trust increase as more fluid suppliers and liquid cooling solutions enter the market. On an IT level, immersing the servers reduces the risk of overheating, thermal stress and oxidation of server components by displacing air from the server components, leading to fewer hardware failures and longer equipment lifetimes. On a redundancy level, continuous cooling and maintainability can happen concurrently, and this happens alongside autonomous safety and comprehensive monitoring. Immersion cooling generates a cost saving of some 45% in datacentre CAPEX and OPEX. Air cooling requires substantial amounts of energy to continuously circulate and cool the air, not to mention run the compressors in refrigeration air chillers within the datacentre. Immersion cooling reduces energy consumption by leveraging the high heat capacity of the cooling liquid, resulting in significant energy savings. The high heat capacity of liquid allows IT to operate within higher temperatures compared to air. This means that running IT in higher environmental temperatures, still allows the IT components to operate well below the maximum component temperature tolerances. The Asperitas platforms are aimed towards 40+°C cooling temperatures, so there are normally no chiller units required, and energy overhead is reduced to a minimum. Energy reuse is greatly optimised as all IT energy is captured in the form of heat inside water. After all, the enclosed system is liquid cooled and there is no other way for the heat to go besides the facility (water-based) coolant which runs through the convection drives. Warm water can easily be transported or even stored for energy reuse scenarios.
High efficiency and reliability (PNC) <> high performance and density (DFC) spectrum
Perpetual Natural Convection and Direct Forced Convection platforms
DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
105
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker