Seeing the Invisible Data Center with CFD Modeling Software
Posted by Michael Bullock on Thu, Mar 18, 2010
Computation Fluid Dynamics - Hot topic at Data Center World
Congrats to AFCOM for another fine event! More than 800 IT and facilities attendees converged in Opryland last week to learn the latest best practices for data center design and operations. Most seemed very keen on improving data center efficiency.
And like usual, there were plenty of vendors hawking their wares to scratch that itch. From floor fan tiles and cable racks - to containers and critical infrastructure, no stone seemed unturned anywhere there was a buck to be made.
So was it just me or did CFD modeling seem to take center stage at many of the vendor booths and presentations? And for good reason I might add. Computation Fluid Dynamics provides a visual illustration of your data center cooling system where you can see clear cause and effect of hot spots, inefficient design and suboptimal deployment.
Sophisticated CFD modeling has been used by Fortune 100 companies to design products ranging from automobiles to hypersonic spacecraft, and has been more recently adapted to data center cooling and airflow analysis. You can rotate a three dimensional rendering of your data center viewing it from all angles and are not limited to a fixed perspectives.
As you know, the main purpose of a data center cooling systems is to maintain equipment within acceptable operating temperature range. This helps to reduce downtime, extend equipment life and optimize energy costs associated with the air conditioning system. Achieving this requires an adequate supply of cooling air as well as effective distribution of the airflow to the inlets of all the racks.
Recent studies have shown that although most Data Centers have over twice the cooling capacity required, they still experience "hot spots" throughout the data center. This is a result of poor airflow management. And since airflow and pressure are invisible, it is difficult to develop a strategy for improving airflow management without the use of an airflow management modeling tool.
With CFD analysis, you can see these invisible temperature differences and airflow pathways. Here is a view that combines temperature and airflow in a single 3D perspective. Notice the red / hot IT racks and the cooler / blue CRACS.
CFD modeling also allows you to do "what if" planning if you want to optimize your current data center in concept, before physical implementation begins. You may believe that ultrasonic humidification will allow you to cool more efficiently, but will it go far enough in power and cooling recovery to postpone a pending data center migration?
And I caution you to keep in mind that while these tools do an excellent job in visualizing temperature and airflow, you still need to be diligent when factoring in power, efficiency and overall return on investment. For example, if you improve the efficiency of your critical infrastructure by 50% (i.e. improving PUE from 3.0 to 2.0), will you be able to immediately apply the recovered power to IT systems?
This partly depends on your infrastructure to deliver conditioned power - the load that can be sustained by your UPS and IT power distribution systems. But even if are not able to expand with this recovered power and cooling, you still will have reduced your data center electric bill by a whopping 33%!
As always, I welcome feedback, questions and comments. And if you know of other companies effectively enabling cloud computing with an impact on the enterprise you believe similar to those listed above, I'd be interested in learning more. You may reach me at mailto:cioblog@transitionaldata.com