The Design and Organization of Data Centers/Air Conditioning
Sizing[edit | edit source]
Air conditioners are rated by tonnage. One ton equals 12,000 BTU per hour.
Equipment heat output is rated in BTUs.
Conversion rates and guides can be found in the appendix.
Use this to size the cooling load!
Northern Air Conditioning Orange County NY
Redundancy issues[edit | edit source]
Your air conditioner will fail. It is only a matter of when and whether you have one to back it up.
Emergency Fan ventilation[edit | edit source]
Can you ventilate into the building or the outside? What is the outside summer temperature?
Multiple air conditioners[edit | edit source]
Spare
Over-sized
Mov-n-cools
Alarm fail over
Thermostatic fail over
Differential temperature settings
Layout your air conditioners to minimize temperature variation across the room.
Humidity Control[edit | edit source]
Found in larger systems
Eliminates static problems
Requires addition of plumbing
Hot Aisles and Cold Aisles[edit | edit source]
Data centers are often separated into hot aisles and cold aisles. The back of the racks or cabinets face the hot aisle, because the hot air is blown in that direction. The fronts of 2 rows of cabinets face each other, and cold air is blown into this aisle to be forced through the front of the servers and out the back into the hot aisles.
Return air ducts are above the hot aisles, while cold air is blown up from underneath the floor into the cold aisle and sometimes into the front of the server cabinets.