[c-nsp] Data Center cooling

[Michael K. Smith - Adhost]

Hello Scott:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net [mailto:cisco-nsp-
> bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of scott owens
> Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 7:16 AM
> To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
> Subject: [c-nsp] Data Center cooling
> 
> Hello,
> 
>    Has anyone looked at using outside air to provide data center
> cooling
> during the winter season ?  I am aware of Google and Intel research
> into
> this area but how about on a smaller scale ?  How about raising
ambient
> temperatures as well - do you keep your data centers at 65 or 80 ?
> 
> Thank you,
> Scott

We are in Seattle and use an air-exchanger system that relies on outside
air as much as possible, and then blends in chilled water as necessary
up to 100% chilled.  It's fairly common here because of the nature of
our climate, and the psychrometric scale
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychrometrics) is favorable for us.

We've also looked at increasing our data center temps from 68F/20C to
closer to 78F/25.56C (hi Gert), but our marketing folks have been the
most resistant because of the prevailing expectation that colder is
better.  There is some good research and testing being done by
Microsoft, Intel and Google in this arena, but I don't think enough has
been published yet to give that calming feeling to the marketing folks.
I would imagine, however, that we will see increasing data center
temperatures more and more in the coming years.

Regards,

Mike