No air-con in my new server room ......!!!!

[kaphc]

Some of you may remember that I have an ongoing saga about the server room in our new school only having an external door. Well, I've managed to convince the head of the security issues regarding this and she is talking to the builders about it to see what can be done.

 

So, while I'm on a roll, I set out my basic shopping list for the server room including a UPS and air-conditioning.

 

I was told (and this is not a joke) - "We're not allowed to have an air-conditioning unit because the school is going to be as eco-friendly as possible and so there will be some sort of ventilation built in."

 

Think I am going to hijack the bloomin' server room, put padded walls in it, sit there and just say "Wibble".

[Sirbendy]

Then I'd insist on a GOOD air-circulation system, maybe water cooled.

[plexer]

Air source heat pump in their extracting the warmth and using it to heat the rest of the school.

 

Ben

[GrumbleDook]

Just trying to work out what is less eco-friendly ... an air-con unit to ensure all your kit actually runs or having to repeatedly replace equipment after it has burnt out due to overheating? The greenness of running air-con is far higher than repurchasing servers (think of the CO2 creating during construction, the packaging and then the transportation).

[dhicks]

"We're not allowed to have an air-conditioning unit because the school is going to be as eco-friendly as possible and so there will be some sort of ventilation built in."

 

Use water-cooling, with the waste heat used to heat the rest of the school?

 

--

David Hicks

[john]

How about this as an off-set option (as proven today by our electric bill for September). Your new school, you will run fully virtualised servers and this will save a large amount of electric (we have seen a reduction of around 5000 kwh on our electric when comparing this September to last September and we cannot find anything different and we have actually been open 3 days more in September this year than last! I'm not saying all 5000 are down to us, but we did go from 14 to 3 (plus random odd bits EG Smoothwall UTM, a NAS box etc)) That should reduce that area very nicely and is very green (we are hoping to impress the DEC assessor this week!) so that should surely off-set it. We have also turend the Air Con up from 19c where it used to live pre-virtualsation to now running at 23C and the Server Room is still nice and cool and nothing is showing itself as too hot or anything.

[gaz350]

How far along is your new college? we had similar issues during the design phase.

 

Server room was originally installed next to the Boiler Room and the Kitchens on the other side with external windows and at the furthest end of the building, Sprinkler system, water and drainage pipes running through the roof space and no Air con!!!!

 

Now, its at the heart of the building, no external walls, no building services in the roof and in the same part of the building as 50% of the users oh and Air Con in the server room aswell as our 4 Comms Rooms. Just keep at it and you should get it.

[steve]

We've been told this too for a new build we're involved with - no air-con in new council buildings.

 

Just a recipe for disaster.

[chrisjako]

If we switch our aircon off in our server room it take just under 2 hours for them to shutdown immediatley when they get hot to preserve them form being fried

[mrbios]

To be fair, it's not a recipe for disaster having no air-con, the building just has to be designed with it in mind that this room must be adequately cooled.

 

Best solution to please both parties in my opinion would be:

Air-con with a temperature sensor to come on depending on the temperature/wind speed outside (specially for hot summer days), combined with good constant air flow throughout the room from two outer walls means there is no need for 24/7 cooling.

 

Obviously that requires the architect and building planners to design the whole thing around it, with proper research going in to the cooling of the room during non-aircon times.....something that will never happen because they all have better things to do...like making sure there new office is twice as big as it needs to be and what colour the new blinds should be :/ For most of us we have server rooms surrounded by 4 inner walls which heat up to an insane amount the second air-con dies, but in a new build then it's a part of the build that needs to be looked in with FAAAAAR more thought than it is ever given.

 

EDIT: oh and obviously you always have to factor in the fact that builders WILL do it wrong or miss something first time no matter how well it's planned

[Pyroman]

What temps do you have your servers to shut down at? And which temperature do you go by? CPU temp, HDD temp?

[Dos_Box]

I'm going to move this to the Green Computing forum, as it's turning into a very interesting topic.

[pete]

Assuming you can ensure a good supply of air cooler enough than room ambient, you don't (strictly speaking) need chillers. You do need something to take excess moisture out of the air.

 

Most kit has an operating temperature range, often split up by inidividual components (say cpu can tolerate more heat than disks). Ours begins shutting down if it gets within 4 degrees of the upper limit (and it mails/texts/squawks at me long before then) because that's a sign the air-con has failed / a fan has failed. Read the manufacturer specs and set your shutdown temps accordingly.

 

Failure of a non-redundant fan causes a shutdown too.

[torledo]

would something like this be adequate as part of a new server rack and room layout ?

to get around the issue of not being allowed aircon. remove/cool as much heat as possible with the rear door heat exchanger, meaning your AHU's or whatever outside air system you have instead of the AC isn't left with the task that it may not be up to the task of doing...?

 

IBM System x - Cooling and accessories portfolio

[Butuz]

Interesting thread!!!

 

We've had to have air con in there as the building was never designed to be able to keep our server room cool (it was not a server room when it was built, it was a cloakroom!!!).

 

Heat exchanger is probably going to be just as expensive to run / environmentally unfriendly as room air con. Modern air con's are very efficient, my mitsubishi server room air con only uses 700watt at full pelt which is amazing really (in contrast a cheap £200 portable air con unit uses 1400 watts) plus as a brucie bonus it can if you need it actuall become a heater, and it's even more efficient at heating than it is at cooling!!

 

Realistically the only way you are going to be able to get away without air con is either if the room/building is specifically designed to move large amounts of air through it, or if you use water cooling of some kind to recycle heat to other areas of the building. This is hideously expensive, it is however A*++ in green terms.

 

Butuz

[SYNACK]

Here we go Liquid Cooling for Data Centers easy, now they just need to add in the 10s of thousands of dollars for the eco system.

 

Personally I would just laugh at them and ask who they were employing to sit there and hold the door open/guard the room to they could actually be switched on during the day.

 

Open air cooling is all very well but what about stuff like bugs, twigs, excess moisture, pollutants that will happily flow in with this air and jam inside the servers reducing their lifespan and stability. What if some kid desides its a good place to squeese a sipper bottle full of coke into, this happened to one server room I worked with - no ac and a two part barn door left half open during the day. By the time we cleaned up the mess and recovered one of the switches they decided that AC may well be a good investment.

[steve]

I'd agree, a well designed air exchange for server room would work on all but the warmest of days (anything I reckon over 25oC ambient would be a problem).

 

But its that well designed bit that's the issue here. If these edicts from on high are going to say no air-con, they need to ensure architects consult with the right people who know how to implement these systems.

 

The building I'm involved with is 90% complete - with server room and no air-con. And as of yet we have no idea what equipment will even be in the building, so how the cooling could be calculated I have no idea.

[Butuz]

Good luck with that one steve.

 

Put a couple of 2kw heaters in there and leave on for a few days then take the project manager in and lock him for an hour.

 

Butuz

[kaphc]

Thanks for all the suggestions about ways to survive without air con .... I had no idea it could be feasibly done so it's quite interesting. Sorry I haven't been back to comment on my initial thread earlier, we've had a few slight issues with our server (I say slight, it's needed a complete rebuild) but I do appreciate all the ideas and think we could have a look at some of these - if the head will listen.

[Oops_my_bad]

I'll put you in touch with the (external) mechanical engineer who did our new build - I provided hardware/heast specs (with some added on for future) and asked for a modest air con unit for the server room. He came back and had fitted 2x monster AC units that are split/duty shared!! And if one fails, the other one kicks in. Neat system, needless to say, we no longer have green cred

[chrisbyrd]

We run what is in the process of being certified as the most energy efficient datacentre in the country, in terms of cooling. We have saved literally tens of thousands of pounds of energy costs by using a very clever 'freecooling' air exchange system. No compressors and no condensors. I'd strong reccomend getting in touch with Alan at EcoCooling (Energy efficient air cooling with Safe Evaporative Cooling from Ecocooling)

[PeteHopton]

How many Watts of server gear have you got and how many SqM is the server room?

Also how new is your server kit?

 

Seriously, I'll figure out if Fresh air cooling is practical/achievable and if not give you a solid case to take back to the builders.

 

With Fresh Air Cooling, you won't actually need any of the above.

[lordasb]

we had that water cooled server room eco friendly system... replaced it as it could not cope with the heat from the server farm.

 

i did the maths on the heat output per hour for the farm which worked out about 37k btu per hour per blade housing. so have 3 linked AC units keeping the room at a happy 20c, no more heat warning from the servers.

[PeteHopton]

Liquid cooling can cool a lot more than air-conditioning, but with all of these things it's about specifying the equipment correctly, otherwise you will just be wasting your time, money and pushing up the energy bill.

 

So how many watts or BTU have you get total? and how big is the room?