The benefit to this approach is its simplicity and price, which is as low as $4,300. The system, introduced two years ago, removes heat before it enters the data center. By lowering the thermal footprint of the racked equipment, the IBM system can move the high-water mark from 7 kilowatts per rack to about 15 kilowatts, a nice gain for the price. The only downside is that the IBM solution requires water pressure of 60 PSI. Not all building systems can supply that much pressure, particularly if there will be a lot of these racks deployed.
HP's solution is more comprehensive, takes more floor space, and costs considerably more. Introduced last year, its Modular Cooling System also uses the existing chilled water supply but adds self-enclosed fans and pumps. The result is a self-contained unit that can remove 30 kilowatts of heat with no impact on the room-based cooling system. Taking your hottest-running, most-power-hungry systems and segregating them into a rack that removes 100% of their generated heat goes a long way toward extending the life of a data center. The racks cost $30,000 a piece, but if it means not building new data centers, they're worth it.
If you already own the racks and simply want a method for extracting large amounts of heat, Liebert makes systems that mount on or above racks. The company says that its XD systems remove up to 30 kilowatts per rack.
Finally, row-based systems such as Advanced Power Conversion's Infrastruxure and Liebert's XDH use half-rack-width heat exchangers between racks of equipment. The heat exchangers pull exhaust from the back, or hot-aisle side, of the racks and blow conditioned air out the front. Because these systems substantially limit the ability for hot exhaust air to mix with cooled air--with APC's product, you can put a roof and doors on the hot aisle for full containment--they can be much more efficient than typical computer room air conditioning, or CRAC, units. Where CRAC units can draw as much as 60% of the power required by the systems they're meant to cool, APC says its system can draw as little as 40%.
Any of these systems will go a long way toward extending the life of a data center. However, if the limiting factor is the capacity of the cooling towers on the building's roof--that is, the ability of the building's existing systems to produce chilled water--then deploying these rack and row solutions is practical only if you shut off some of your existing CRAC units. The good news is that, quite often, you can do just that.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
