How Liquid Cooling Technologies Could Help Regulate Data Center Temperature

There are many different ways to regulate the temperature of a data center, one of which may be data center air conditioning. However, there is also liquid cooling technology that can help keep data centers cool. This is being used increasingly often, and for very good reasons. It is showing itself to be very effective. Whether you are thinking about a cloud-based data center, a cloud server farm, or a computer data center, it is important to keep the technology at an appropriate temperature. In order for data center applications to work properly, everything needs to be kept at the correct temperature.

Many people may not think that this is important, but the truth is that it is very important to keep machinery at the right temperature in order to be able to preserve everything that is inside it. Data is very important in some cases as well, and you really do not want to lose it just because you did not keep the machinery cool enough. Some of this data can include medical records or other extremely important information that can have a major impact on lives. This is why it is important to note the importance of keeping equipment cool in preserving data.

Liquid cooling — a method of cooling one’s technology infrastructure with water, rather than air — is sometimes used by computer enthusiasts and avid gamers to regulate the temperature within their PC processors. It hasn’t, however, been used to keep large-scale data center servers cool. At least not yet.

According to a January 21 V3 article, UK firm Iceotope is currently testing liquid cooling systems for data centers that could help slash energy consumption, increase the number of server racks placed in each server room, and cut data centers’ carbon footprints immensely.

Dr. Jon Summers of the University of Leeds said that traditional server rack cooling systems typically use about 55 watts of energy to remove 2 kilowatts of heat energy from a controlled environment such as a server rack cabinet. Liquid cooling can remove the same amount of heat energy while consuming just 1 watt of energy.

According to V3, the Iceotope liquid cooling scheme is compatible with most server rack enclosures. The systems don’t use any fans, and thus are much quieter than the fan-powered air conditioning systems largely seen today. Its developers estimate the liquid cooling system can boast a power usage effectiveness as low as 1.05; the current industry average hovers around 1.5.

Liquid cooling isn’t the only potential energy-saving cooling system being developed, however. Facebook has begun to use outside air to maintain temperatures within its server rooms. Dell is developing servers that can safely operate at much higher temperatures.

Even with these potential alternatives being pursued, IBM, HP, and even Dell are all looking into the potential savings on energy use that liquid cooling could offer.