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Amid increasing forecasts of power shortages threatening UK companies’ computing infrastructures – typified by Gartner’s prediction that half of all data centres could suffer power supply difficulties in 2008 - a UK data centre expert says that IT professionals can take practical maintenance steps, at no additional cost to their business, to help safeguard their IT infrastructures’ performance over the warmer summer months.
The claim comes from Loughborough-based on365.co.uk, a specialist in the planning, installing, management and optimisation of physical IT infrastructure and utility services. on365.co.uk says that IT managers must focus on improving their systems’ air flow, and avoid the ‘seven deadly sins’ of poor infrastructure maintenance.
on365.co.uk’s marketing director Chris Smith said: “Many companies are experiencing difficulties in maintaining the correct operating temperatures for their business systems. This is frequently due to out-dated thinking and errors like failing to maintain effective air flow for cooling their computing equipment. With the growth in high density, high power systems, many IT managers may not be 100 per cent certain what they should do to make their data centre and its associated utilities achieve optimum performance.”
on365.co.uk has identified ‘seven deadly sins’ in data centre operation that IT managers must avoid to safeguard data centre operations through the summer.
Sin one: operating IT system server racks with poor containment of both power and data cabling. This restricts airflow through the equipment and causes dangerous hot spots. Racks with glass or solid doors can also have the same effect.
Sin two: failing to use appropriate blanking plates in spare rack space. This leads to rack-level air mixing, which can “short circuit” hot air from back and sides of equipment back into itself or into other systems, once again destroying the efficiency of the cooling system as installed.
Sin three: adding capacity - adding more equipment in the data centre on an ‘if it fits’ basis -without reviewing the cooling and power needs. This ‘ad hoc capacity’ habit often means new, higher performance equipment, replacing or being added to racks, causing higher than previously experienced power and heat densities. This in turn can lead to intermittent problems with equipment owing to hot spots and peaks in power demand.
Sin four: over-cooling their data centre. Now that recommended equipment operating temperatures are going up, and summer is bringing higher ambient temperatures, IT managers often seek a “margin of safety” by trying to cool computer spaces to 16 or 17ºC, when a maximum temperature of 20-21ºC is often acceptable. This ‘overcooling’ habit works air conditioning units harder, and can end up in compromising the overall cooling infrastructure when it is required to manage peaks in demand. IT managers must check that their room temperatures are set up for their specific servers’ needs, and not according to their own perceptions.
Sin five: installing more cassette-type air conditioning (ceiling mounted units) because the room is getting hot in areas furthest away from existing cooling. Cassette-type air handlers are designed for comfort cooling of people more than cooling of specific equipment in a given part of a data centre and are very efficient at mixing cold air with the returning hot air. This makes the unit very inefficient in terms of operational costs and the addition of more units, makes the situation worse - it is effectively a waste of money. It is better practice to try and separate the hot and cold air.
Sin six: neglecting to regularly check that power and cooling systems are in balance across the system. A series of seemingly insignificant changes in the data centre can combine to radically reduce airflows or increase the risk of particular racks drawing excess power under peak load. Regular reviews of the data centre air flow and cooling at a system-wide level are vital.
Sin seven: installing urgently needed servers or storage without planning for improved power or cooling budget. This unplanned approach is a very high risk strategy even with energy costs increasing. On365 has seen organisations put new servers on racks due to immediate business need, without a budget for cooling, leading to equipment overheating and failures.
On 365 recommends that companies organise simple checks for practical issues such as:
• Ensuring filters are clean and all fans are running
• Good cable management down the sides of equipment racks preventing any restriction of air flow
• Fitting all blanking plates - airflow needs to be carefully controlled
• Balance - where there is a pressurised floor, is the balance right across the whole room, has boosting in one area made another area’s marginal?
• Floor panels – are the correct ones in the right places? Ensure there is clean air flow below the floor
• Spreading high power equipment around the space to reduce the number of high density areas
• Rearranging racks to a hot aisle – cold aisle set-up
• Separating hot and cold air flows with ducting.
About on365.co.uk
on365.co.uk is a specialist in the planning, installing, management and optimisation of physical IT infrastructure and utility services, from the desktop to server rooms to data centres. Its comprehensive IT support capabilities encompass installation, system testing, network integration, on-site maintenance and audit/review services. It has clients across the UK financial, telecommunications, utility, transport and leisure sectors.
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