Published on 21 April 2009
The very mention of the term "free cooling" generates
a lot of interest in the IT industry, especially the energy hungry
data center sector. After all who would not like to know or utilize
a technology in a scenario where literally half of the energy costs
are used for cooling the computing equipment, while only one half
is used in actually running those equipments. This problem is compounding
by the day due to various factors such as increasing power density
of servers, increasing energy demands, deteriorating environment
and green house effects. The words "free cooling" certainly free
the data center manager from a lot of burden.
Yet, do not get carried away by this terminology for
free-cooling is not actually totally-free. Actually a more appropriate
name for free cooling should have been –reduced power cooling. This
might come as a bit of disappointment but then to see the silver
lining in the cloud, just think about the savings in costs which
can be achieved and as they say – every bit helps.
Basically free cooling refers to a process wherein
the chiller is either bypassed completely or partially and naturally
available air or water is used to cool the data center through the
use of economizers. This leads to a substantial decrease in energy
consumption based on various parameters such as external weather
conditions. Here are some tips which would help you to take the
best possible advantage of the available free cooling resources.
To read further, please visit the Data Center Journal
website:
http://datacenterjournal.com/content/view/2741/41/
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