If you have ever spilled a drink on a mobile phone or other electronic device, or dropped it into a liquid (swimming pool, lake, toilet), then you will know that it is a disaster if electronic products encounter water. Although high-tech electronic products in the data center are very sensitive to the external environment, water is not necessarily the enemy of these computing and data storage devices.
Data center space in any building is costly, so adding more computing equipment in the data center means greater power density, as well as the heat dissipated by the facility's power consumption. Since electronic products cannot withstand high temperatures, heat must be removed from the device, so is it enough to dissipate heat through the cabinet door? Of course there is no problem when the outside temperature is low enough, but in many cases, this approach is still far from meeting the cooling needs of these facilities.
If the heat sources are evenly distributed in the data center, then cooling these IT facilities will be relatively simple. Although the temperature in the data center is cold enough, due to server configuration issues on the rack, there are often hot spots that can be tricky. If the air conditioning through CRACs can have an overall cooling effect on the data center, both the cost of acquisition and operation management are higher. And this method will also cause excessive cooling in some areas, resulting in waste, and good air flow control technology can help solve this problem, but if the power density exceeds a certain limit, even a thorough air conditioning cooling scheme is not enough to protect sensitive IT equipment.
High density: short air cooling
As power density increases, so does the heat in the data center. So what kind of method will be effective and not burden the enterprise in terms of cost? Air-based cooling technology is a good solution because it is ubiquitous and will not cause damage to any equipment. But the problem is that air is a terrible heat conductor, and hot air can flow through the air. For example, in the cold winter, you will feel that the metal block exposed outdoors is colder than the air. This is because the metal is a good thermal conductor. It takes more heat than the air takes away from your hands. On the other hand, air is also a good thermal insulator compared to metal, but even so, air cannot hold a lot of heat compared to other materials. For example, water, so when the water is used for cooling, it can take away more heat than other materials.
Therefore, air is not the best medium for cooling high-density data centers. More efficient IT equipment can help to improve this problem, but the heat generated by high density is enough to offset the benefits of increased efficiency. A more advantageous heat transfer medium is water. Mr. Kris Domich, DimensionDataAmericas main data center consultant, summarized water as a refrigerant as follows: "Water and other liquids have more potential as refrigerants than air, so they are often used in higher density equipment. . But it ’s important to remember that we do n’t control the heat by cooling but we want to remove the heat, so heat evacuation must be efficient and precise. â€
It is nothing new to use water as the refrigerant. It has been used in the mainframe business for decades. However, the application of mainframes in the data center has gradually decreased, and water cooling has also been eliminated. However, since air is no longer sufficient to cool high-power density equipment, water or liquid cooling is lifted again and is regarded as the future outlet for cooling data centers.
Liquid cooling
The essence of liquid cooling technology comes down to two aspects: First, the application of liquid in equipment, but water as a conductor will never directly contact the equipment chip. Therefore, water is used as a transmission medium for heat dissipation in future data centers. Due to the nature of water, high-tech piping systems and equipment must be strictly separated when cooling with water. "Many data centers that have not used liquid cooling think that liquid is so close to IT equipment is not a good idea, but in a properly designed system, liquid should not have the opportunity to contact IT equipment, so all dangers are easy Was avoided, "Domich said. Of course, this special cooling infrastructure also increases the cost of the data center, especially the chiller and excessive piping, but for high-density supercomputers and high-performance equipment, the energy-saving effect of liquid cooling is high cost Balance point.
Will water cooling be abandoned
Despite the high cost and security, water will not be completely abandoned by the data center industry, although there is an insurmountable gap between water and IT equipment. Data center managers often aspire to liquid cooling, but are afraid to embrace it, depending on their level of knowledge and technology. Now when many people encounter difficulties in the implementation, they will keep IT equipment away from the water source. Although the water pipe is not a complicated problem, they seem to believe that the leakage is everywhere.
Of course, minor defects of one kind or another can lead to leaks that can damage IT equipment. But this is not enough to completely deny the advantages of water cooling. The use of water cooling depends largely on the demand of IT equipment for water cooling.
Water or liquid cooling is not necessarily limited to large data centers, although cost is a major consideration. In fact, data centers of all sizes have increasingly tried liquid cooling, especially the large and medium-sized data centers that are rapidly adopting high-density computing. In other words, the higher the power density of the data center, the greater the foothold of water cooling.
Water substitute
However, water is not the only liquid that can take away heat. Although water has the advantages of practical availability, safety, and low cost, its conductivity is indeed flawed and cannot be used as an equipment immersion. Other liquids may be better than water at this convenience, but they almost always have problems such as higher cost, poor availability, and potential impact on the environment and human health. For immersion cooling, mineral oil is a good choice. Not only does it have thermal conductivity similar to water, but there is no danger of leakage. Because the equipment is immersed in liquid, the data center must use different types of infrastructure to realize this huge cooling solution. The equipment rack may adopt a drum structure, and maintenance also involves rack drainage. This will require some method to temporarily store the liquid until the liquid returns to the rack. In addition, it is unlikely that such a system can scale vertically.
in conclusion
Water or liquid has long existed in the data center. To some extent, it has never left, but it is certainly not a universal choice. Regardless of its current situation, its future seems to be brighter and brighter. Although water is not the first choice for cooling computer equipment, its superiority is increasingly prominent in large-scale, particularly high-density data centers. The relationship between water and mainframe may make it continue to serve cutting-edge supercomputers and other IT equipment.
Therefore, the use of water cooling depends heavily on the density of the data center. With increasing IT demand, in the current establishment or expansion of data center projects based on existing resources, the probability that data center managers use liquid cooling solutions to deal with high-density computing is still limited. However, in the face of the problem of local hot spots in the data center using cold air cooling, water or liquid cooling may remedy this deficiency. Of course, no liquid leakage is the premise that everyone wants.
Outdoor Play System,Children Outdoor Playground,Outdoor Playground With Tunnel,Outdoor Playground With Climbing
Zhejiang Egoal Playground Equipment Co., Ltd. , https://www.trampolineparks.pl