Hot, Hot, Hot
I managed to dodge the Austin weather for the past 2 weeks, and boy did I pick a good time to be out of town. The temperatures were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit almost every day that I was gone. For those of you on the metric system, I believe that 100 degrees roughly translates into the temperature of the surface of the sun. A cold beer can’t cool you off if it immediately vaporizes.
Truthfully, 100F translates to ~37C or so, which is very close to the 35C spec that is so common in the computer industry. We spec our processors to run at a maximum temperature of 35C, which means that there is a lot of heat being generated inside those boxes. Blades, twins and 1U servers aren’t helping the situation because their form factors are driving greater heat density.
Many are starting to investigate things like liquid cooling racks or other proprietary schemes to drive lower temperatures. The reason for this is that the chillers used to keep the server room at a lower temperature are very expensive.
Everyone is trying to avoid “the million dollar server.” That is the last server that breaks the camel’s back and forces you to upgrade the AC units. Power is generally a continuum – add another server and your cost go up marginally (as long as you don’t need to pull another circuit to the rack.)
But with cooling, it is not quite as linear. There is both a variable cost for each server, as well as a large step-function jump when you have to add new equipment.
The two big challenges that are hitting the data center when it comes to cooling the data center with proprietary methods are cost and risk.
Cost is always a driver with any type of proprietary system. It will be a driver until the system hits critical mass. Even then, if there are complicated manufacturing methods, even widespread market adoption might not drive the cost curve down fast enough. If some proprietary intellectual property is included in the system, expect royalties to continue to take their bite.
The other factor is risk, but it is not risk in the classic sense. It is the risk of making the wrong decision. If you choose the new technology too early, you might miss some innovation that helps drive the cost down somewhat. And if you guess wrong, well, we don’t need to say how that story ends, we’ve all see the movie.
Cost and risk are driving a lot of customers to investigate more non-standard cooling technologies, but that process is not happening fast enough for some companies. Air cooling is not only the traditional method, but even with new technology, it remains the predominant method.
I’m very interested in your cooling strategies. Post a comment with what you are doing to combat “global warming” in your own environment.
John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
POSTED IN: AMD Opteron
TAGS: cooling, Energy Efficiency, servers, temperature
SHARE:
COMMENTS: 6
Google data center born without chillers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/16/google_chillerless_data_center/
Someone should key Google on AMD’s low power server processors
I did read that story and it is a very interesting take on cooling data centers.
One of the challenges is that the processor is only one component in the server, and the failure rate on processors tends to be fairly low so they tend to do better in hotter environments. Expecially compared to the other components on the server (fans, power supplies and hard drives tend to be much more susceptible.)
I have also blogged previously about companies that are utilizing virtualization to move virtual machines around the globe to “chase the low power” – moving virtual machine loads to geographic regions where the cost of power is lower (at that particular moment.)
One thing is for sure, there are many different ways to address power in the data center and as power becomes more of an issue, the tactics continue to progress.
Animated video tour of a data center EDS / HP built in the UK using “bone-chillingly icy” free air, coupled with chillers for backup:
http://www.eds.com/multimedia/videos/green_data_center_tour_500k_091008.asx
You can see that cold aisles are actually sealed with caps and doors.
Here’s a learning that sounds more like a Martha Stewart tip than a mission-critical facilities tip: facilities with light-grey equipment use less energy from lighting than those with black or dark-grey equipment.
Many have gone to great lengths to segregate the hot and cold air. I was as a data center for a Formula 1 race team in Italy about 2 years ago and they had a similar setup. It’s more of a discipline, but it can pay great rewards.
Had not thought about the color of the equipment. There is talk here in the states of painting roofs a different color to reflect sunlight and cut down on cooling costs – I guess it all adds up.
“If some proprietary intellectual property is included in the system, expect royalties to continue to take their bite.”
hey, i don’t see anything that proprietary systems will continue to bite the revenue of a company. Although, open systems will drive the innovations but it’s not always will be. Take an example like SGI (formerly Rackable), you must think this. SGI see the systems will drive demands because the system integrator vendor is trusted by their customers and the customer also see the value of the proprietary products because powered by the number one semicondutor company and the socket is compatible with proprietary itanium processor and open environment Intel 64. Although, they will pay more for this.
It seems that your maranello platforms will be competitive with your competitor microprocessors and platforms. But, it is far away to catch more customers to adopt your chips because many individuals believe that even you produce more competitive products, it is easy to beat by your competitor because they have more money than your company and could produces more chip than your company.
I have been in the server business for the past 17 or so years.
We have clearly gone from a proprietary world to a very standards-based world. Proprietary technology will always have its place in the market, but the cost is the driver that forces customers down the path of standards. Cooling is no different.
A proprietary solution to solve a particular business problem will always be available. Standards will always drive the bulk of the market and help drive more innovation.
Proprietary products drive to the niches, and that is not where the market is.