Over the last three years we have brought news of the latest data centre and IT cooling systems which TROX AITCS has brought to the market. Here we look at the latest development designed to maximise a CRAC system and provide an expandable solution.

Demand for cooling

While the financial sector appears to have been left reeling from the latest credit crisis, the engineers charged with maintaining the services in data centres and on trading floors appear to be as much in demand as ever.

Large capital expansion projects may have been put on the back burner, but at a time when the traders are fighting to survive, now is not the time for critical systems to be out of action due to overheating.

Ever increasing computing power has significantly raised the heat gains in IT communications rooms and independent studies have shown that hotspots are caused by a number of reasons, which include limited cooling capacity per unit and poor cool air circulation to the hot cabinets. In addition a floor void which is congested with cables can prevent adequate cool air from reaching the floor grilles, all of which can lead to overheating and system failure.

TROX AITCS is well known in the industry for their development of mission critical cooling solutions including CO₂OLrac which provides cooling up to 30kw per rack using liquid CO₂ as a method of cooling in place of chilled water for close control units (often referred to as CRAC units). Liquid CO₂ is now well established as an alternative to chilled water cooling systems and with over 1.7MW of cooling installed in the UK alone, it has a proven track record of success.

But with many companies tightening the purse strings this can often be an expensive option if your requirement is for less than 30kw of cooling per rack but up until now there hasn’t really been an alternative which provides the same level of reliability but at a fraction of the cost. Guy Hutchins, director of TROX AITCS says: “It is a common problem in the current economic climate that clients want the reliability of a CO₂ cooling system but they don’t have the budget to spend on a large project. Through our work in this area we now have the ability to design a bespoke solution at a moment’s notice and it is this ability which has led to a brand new solution to meet the needs of our customers.”

A new solution

The product in question is CO₂OLbridge, a purpose built solution which has been specifically designed by TROX AITCS to maximise the life of existing CRAC systems and which creates hot and cold aisle containment at a micro level for optimum localised cooling.

The concept of this new development is very simple and works along the same theory as the CO₂ cooling system, allowing the client to upgrade in the future.

Guy says: “The concept of CO₂OLbridge was born out of the work we have been doing with CO₂OLrac in that it identified a number of customers whose current cooling system does not have the capacity to provide an adequate solution. In the long term they may wish to implement a system like CO₂OLrac but in the interim they needed a reliable solution which could provide up to 10kw of cooling capacity.

“CO₂OLbridge works as an air cooling system and is suitable as a low to medium density solution. It uses a purpose made computer room floor grille which provides a raised floor outlet pattern matched to the CO₂OLbridge air inlet hood at low level.

“The system adopts the CO₂OLrac carcass as its fan powered extraction unit which means that when a high density system is required it is ready to accept the addition of a CO₂ cooling coil.”

The CO₂OLbridge solution will provide a rack cooling capacity of up to 10kw and the DC variable speed fans can be adjusted to suit the cabinet heat load. In addition to ensure that both the supply and exhaust temperature is always monitored, the unit can be incorporated into the BMS system which means that should a problem occur the alarm is raised immediately.

The benefits

One of the great things about this solution is that it has been designed to satisfy the basic requirements of data centre cooling, eliminating hotspots while enabling the low density infrastructure to be converted into a high density solution when the need arises.

In addition there is one aspect which continues to be a preference for their clients and that is the interface with the cabinets. Guy says: “It is quite often the case that clients have a preferred supplier for their cabinets and would be uneasy about using an alternative. Because we are able to make modifications in our factory we can produce a solution to suit any cabinet and are therefore able to satisfy the needs of the customer whether it is for a new-build or retrofit solution.”

What I really like about this is that it caters for the low to medium density cooling requirements but takes into account the fact that with real estate at a premium there will be a time in the future when the client requires a cooling capacity of up to 30kw but does not have the space to expand their data centre.

CO₂OLbridge allows the client to make that decision with the installation of a solution which suits their current needs but which can be upgraded at any point. This in itself is a breath of fresh air because generally an upgrade of any technical solution requires the installation of new plant at a cost which can prove to be prohibitive.

In addition it provides a very effective solution to their current needs using the type of superior technology which is generally only to be found in high density solutions.

And finally

We are constantly talking about the need to be energy efficient and TROX AITCS have found the perfect solution, not just to data centre cooling but also to the issue of getting rid of redundant plant just because the client needs an upgrade. By designing CO₂OLbridge in such a way as to make an upgrade easy, the client does not require a complete renovation to their data centre when their cooling requirements increase – nor do they need a completely new set of kit – they simply need an upgrade to their current equipment with no mess and no waste.

In short this makes CO₂OLbridge a truly future-proof solution, offering the best technology available today with the option to take advantage of the new developments which we are sure to see over the next few years.

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