Data Center Tour: Cooling Technology



    We continue our tour of the largest Intel data center in Russia, and today we will talk about the cooling technologies of this data center.

    To begin with, I would like to draw attention to the fact that Intel adheres to its air-cooling DPCs and has developed a number of techniques that reduce operating costs with this approach. Why aren’t other alternatives used, such as water cooling?
    First, historically, Intel factories used air cooling at certain stages of the semiconductor manufacturing process. The IT service of the company, based on this many years of experience, has developed a number of methods for cooling its data centers. In addition, Intel data centers are large and more efficiently air-cooled. It is simpler and cheaper to provide cold and heated air to the entire area of ​​the server room or room than to supply and drain water for each rack installed there.

    Secondly, the water cooling system is more vulnerable. It's hard to argue with that. For example, there is a large server room, which is blown by 20 air conditioners. As a rule, Intel data centers install air conditioners in a configuration of at least N + 1. It turns out one air conditioner fails - it's okay, there is redundancy. And what will happen in the event of a water cooling rack? If the processors survive, then server shutdowns can hardly be avoided.

    The principle of operation of the cooling system in data centers is as follows. Air conditioners drive chilled air under the raised floor, where it is evenly distributed around the perimeter of the entire room and blown back up through special grill holes in the floor in strictly defined places to the front parts of the racks. It is worth noting that the air temperature at the inlet to the servers is 22-24 degrees. Further, this air is taken in by the servers, inside each of which there are large fans, and passes through all the "internals" of the server: processor, system board, etc., leaving the back side already heated. According to the laws of physics, heated air moves to a low pressure zone, i.e. up and back to the air conditioners, where the cooling cycle starts again.

    The general cooling technology of the data center is reduced to the joint use of a number of simple but very effective techniques:

    1. using special dummy panels
    2. transferring the entire cable infrastructure from under the raised floor to the space above the server racks
    3. sealing all openings in the raised floor
    4. using a false ceiling for already heated air intake

    Additionally, in cases when it is necessary particularly thorough cooling, using special server cabinets with built-hood and the pipe, leaving a false ceiling, through which th and blown out to the air conditioners all the heated air. In this case, the problem of mixing cold and hot air is completely solved, which significantly increases the efficiency of the cooling system.

    Thus, even though there is a myth that it is impossible to cool equipment with air more than 15-18 kW per rack, Intel, thanks to the use of the simple but effective methods discussed above, can achieve cooling in its data centers of up to 32 kW per rack .

    You can learn more about these techniques and their effectiveness by watching a video and reading an interview .

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