Manufacturers Respond to the Server Cooling Challenge

Blade servers have moved from a novel technical approach to a core IT processing technology in the last 3 years - even replacing mainframes in some companies! With this migration to a new technology platform have come some thorny problems: three phase power to racks, high density cooling demands, hot spots in raised floor environments. The five top strategies for blade server solutions?

1) Spread the servers out to leverage existing capacity.

2) Install "band-aid" cooling equipment to move air through hot-spots more effectively.

3) Adding additional precision air equipment to increase capacity.

4) Add supplemental cooling in the rack rows and on ceilings over hot-spots.

5) Create high-density cooling zones for blade server areas.

Each of these solutions has trade-offs and can be expensive! What is needed is a holistic approach, and manufacturer's have now had time to research and develop better, more cost effective solutions. These include better systems for controlling air mixing between hot and cold aisles, higher capacity units which are integrated into the IT rack floor plans and leveraging the higher cooling capacity of fluid based cooling units. Join us to review what you can do in existing and new data centers to deploy blade server technology with confidence.