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Core4 Launches Cooling Product Line
June 22nd, 2009 : Rich Miller
A view of Core4 products in use at Sonic.net in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Data center cooling is a tough market for a start-up to crack, dominated by large industrial companies with long track records in the market. But Core4 Systemsis entering the cooling equipment market this week with a line of computer room air conditioners (CRACs), air handlers and chiller systems.
Core4 is emphasizing energy efficiency, and touting its systems as replacements for existing products in retrofits to expand data center cooling capacity. The company says its systems can help data center operators increase the density of equipment in their racks, which allows companies to expand their computing capacity without building additional space.
Core4 is based in Napa, Calif. and has financial backing from an angel investor, according to VP of business development Jamien McCullum. Company president David Nurse was previously an executive with Ingersoll Rand , while chief technical officer Rick Cockrell was an energy design specialist with Bell Products Inc.
Core4 has deployed its equipment at one existing data center. Sonic.net, an ISP and colocation provider in Santa Rosa, Calif., says the savings realized by the Core4 systems led PG&E to award Sonic.net an energy rebate of $129,000.
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Roundup: Corning, Tripp Lite, Emerson
June 19th, 2009 : Tom MillerHere’s a roundup of data center industry news from this week:
- Corning Incorporated (GLW) announced a new “bend-insensitive” optical fiber data center solution. Corning’s Clearcurve features a reduced cable diameter that the company says will allow trunk cables and jumpers to be quickly routed through tight spaces with no impact on system performance.
- Tripp Lite has introduced a new wall-mount rack enclosure. The new SmartRack Enclosure enables rackmounting in remote locations or any facility not requiring full-sized rack enclosures. The SRW12US enclosure provides 12U of rack space, and includes an optional caster kit which allows it to become a mobile floor-unit.
- Emerson Network Power (EMR) has expanded its Liebert XD family of high-density cooling solutions with XD Smart Modules, which add cooling modules with integrated control boards which would enable higher efficiency performance.
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Are You Running Out of Power or Cooling?
June 15th, 2009 : Kevin NormandeauHow do you extend the value of what you have and plan for what you need? Data centers are packing in more power-hungry, heat generating IT systems than ever, and many power and cooling systems are reaching their limits. Older power protection, power distribution and HVAC systems could be bottlenecks to needed expansion. Since these support systems represent 40 percent of the cost of IT equipment, a wholesale upgrade is generally not an option. So, what is the best way to augment and extend existing capacity within the constraints of tight budgets and limited support staff? How can you establish a power and cooling infrastructure that is ready for growth but not over-provisioned for an uncertain future?
This Eaton white paper offers strategies that enable IT managers to:
- Plan a more efficient and adaptable power and cooling infrastructure, starting with an audit of the present state and evaluation of alternative approaches and technologies.
- Monitor and measure power and cooling systems, so they can be managed more effectively and economically.
- Optimize the existing cooling system through mechanical and room layout changes, using relatively inexpensive devices to redirect and concentrate available airflow.
- Augment UPS and power distribution systems by using modular approaches and the latest, high efficiency products.
With simple changes in infrastructure and practices, any data center can extend the value of available backup power and cooling systems—delaying the point where those systems would have to be upgraded to match data center expansion. Click here to download this white paper on data center power and cooling strategies.
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HP Retools Cooling Management Solution
June 10th, 2009 : Rich MillerHP has repackaged its data center cooling management tool, hoping a new scaled-down version will resonate with a broader set of data center customers. The HP Data Center Environmental Edge solution combines wireless sensors and management software to give data center operators a visual overview of the temperature in their racks.
Environmental Edge is a stripped-down version of Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC), the flagship cooling management solution HP began selling in 2007. Like DSC, the new cooling solution is designed to provide precise management of air conditioning systems in response to changes in server temperatures. The system deploys sensors throughout the data center, which take regular readings and report the results back to HP’s Environmental Observer visualization software.
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Reclaiming Wasted Cooling Capacity
June 5th, 2009 : Kevin NormandeauIn a new white paper, OpenGate Data Systems shows how reclaiming wasted cooling capacity - which results from hot air leakage and cool air bypass - is possible with an intelligently managed cooling distribution system.
Deployment of high density equipment into data center infrastructure is now a common occurrence, yet many data centers are not adequately equipped to handle the additional cooling requirements resulting from these deployments. This is resulting in undesirable conditions such as recirculation or mixing of hot and cool air, poorly controlled humidity and costly wasted cooling capacity.
This paper defines cooling oversupply, provides examples for quantifying cool air bypass and hot air recirculation, and assigns principles to evaluate high-density rack performance and cooling efficiency benefits which are gained from Unity CoolingTM - the raising of supply air temperature and supplying only the cooling required by the IT load. Click here to download this whitepaper on reclaiming wasted cooling.
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Survey: Rack Density Heading Higher
May 26th, 2009 : Rich Miller
Many new data centers will be built to support power densities of between 10 kW and 20 kW per rack, significantly higher than the 7.4 kW average supported by current facilities, according to a new survey of data center operators released today by Emerson Network Power (EMR). Among the reasons cited for designing for higher density data centers were the need to save facility space, support blade servers and reduce energy costs.The findings were among the data points from Emerson’s bi-annual survey of its Data Center Users Group (DCUG), which polls more than 120 data center, facility and IT managers shared information about future plans for their data centers. The survey results were previewed earlier this month during the two-day DCUG spring conference in Washington, D.C.
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Power & Cooling News: DegreeC, Raritan, APC
April 30th, 2009 : Rich MillerThere’s been a large volume of data center news this week, so here’s the first in a series of news roundups to get you caught up. Here are several industry announcements this week from vendors of power and cooling products:
- AdaptivCool, the data center thermal management division of Degree Controls, Inc. (DegreeC),has announced a 30-day free trial for HotSpotr, a system that eliminates data center hot spots. The trial offer applies to the HotSpotr HT-500, which can eliminate hot spots in one to three racks.
- Raritan has expanded its data center power management lineup with the Dominion PX-4000 Series, an intelligent rack power distribution unit (PDU) for monitoring the energy usage of blade servers and other high-density networking equipment. The PX-4000 Series is designed without remote outlet power switching to minimize blade servers from being switched off accidentally.
- APC by Schneider Electric this week introduced APC InRow SC Systems, a new integrated cooling enclosure ideal for network closet and server room environments. The systems come with up to 7kW of cooling capacity, a 600mm wide rack enclosure, and front and rear containment options, and can monitor and actively adjust cooling capacity to ensure proper server inlet temperatures.
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The World’s Largest Raised Floor?
April 20th, 2009 : Rich Miller
The new Phoenix ONE data center will have 460,000 square feet of raised floor.
As a leading vendor of tiles for raised floors, Tate has helped customers install more than 450 million square feet of its products. But i/o Data Centers’ new Phoenix ONE data center will be its largest installation project ever in a single data center facility, with a raised-floor area spanning more than 460,000 square feet.
The massive project will be completed in three phases, with the first 180,000 square feet scheduled for completion by June 1. This will be followed by a second and third phases of 180,000 and 100,000 square feet, respectively.
“We are fortunate to be profitable, well-capitalized and growing despite the economy,” said Anthony Wanger, president and founder of i/o Data Centers. “There was no question that we would incorporate raised flooring into our Phoenix ONE data center and we knew that industry-leader Tate was the right choice for a project of this magnitude.”
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