GREEN- www.gbcsa.co.za
Clearline Infrastructure Solutions are proud to announce that we are a member of the Green Building Council in SA.
What does ‘GREEN’ mean in the ITC market?
- Energy Efficiencies
- Increased Recyclable and re-usable products
- RoHS
- Led free materials
- Pre-terminated products
- High density connectivity
- Environmentally friendly etc.
CIS strive towards LEED (leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) credits in all our solutions offerings.
What is the 4th Utility?
Three utilities has been around for many years – Electricity, gas and water and the 4th ICT.
For the last 30years the first 3 utilities stayed the same and the requirement did not change significantly, BUT the 4th utility has changed dramatically and will change into the future. The demand for ICT is increasing daily and the question is “How can one afford NOT to install a good ICT cabling system?
Phone CIS for more information to assist with making your data center greener, assisting with your LEED credentials and ensure you do cater for the unforeseen future!
The availability of an almost limitless systems area that, at any given time and in any given position, allows access to electric power supplies, telephone and data cables, connections to other machines, air-conditioning, pipes for hot or cold water, or any other type of fluid, not to mention various security systems, is indispensable when ensuring that an area is perfectly served. It can be changed whenever necessary to meet new needs without any further cost, while leaving aesthetics unaffected and systems operational.
Access floors range from various heights and weight limitations depending on the clients requirements. CIS can also build access floor ramps and step-ups as per the client specific requirement
- Precision Air Conditioning:
We provide air conditioning units which ensures optimum temperatures + humidity conditions are maintained wherever environmental conditions must be ensured in order to guarantee confirmed functioning of vital applications. These units include down draft units, midwall split units, comfort cooling etc which offer specifications like air recirculation, humidification, de-humidification, filtration, heating, cooling etc.
There are numerous ways to cool down your facility but the biggest challenge faced within the facility is:
- To ensure the hot air and gold air does not mix
- To eliminate hot spots by creating efficient airflow
- Install a cooling system that is flexible and scalable as per your current and future requirements.
The following are ways to cool your facility:
Raised floor climate control – Hot Aisle and Cold Aisle
The main aim here is to ensure constant temperatures and precise humidity levels. Continuous-operation designs and redundant systems ensure that all key functions are maintained. CRAC systems dissipate waste heat on demand, ensuring that the overall system operates in the most energy-saving way possible.
Rack-specific climate control
The In-Rack cooling solution is designed to sit within a bayed enclosure suite. The hot air is extracted from the room or warm aisle at the rear of the unit, cooled, then blown out forwards into the cold aisle, where it is available to your IT equipment. The In-Rack cooling solution achieves maximum performance and efficiency in conjunction with cold aisle containment. With this solution, a raised floor is not necessary.
Creating more efficiencies and scalability
Cold aisle containment
Instead of flooding the data centre with cold air the cold aisle containment system effectively traps the cool air exactly where it is needed directly in front of the air intake of the servers. Cold air is directed across the whole height of the enclosure ensuring that there are no hotspots and the hot air is exhausted out of the system. Due to the cold aisle being contained there is no chance of the hot exhaust air mixing with the cold inlet air, therefore there is an increase in system efficiency. The special energy efficiency benefits:
- Cold and hot air cannot mix, warm air does not flow into the cold aisle.
- The system can be operated with a much higher extracted air temperature.
- Standard air circulation cooling units are operated at an optimum thermal efficiency level.
CRAC system and cold aisle containment
By using cold aisle containment, climate control of the room may be optimized in terms of energy efficiency and cooling output.
Benefits:
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High energy efficiency
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Increased cooling output per server enclosure
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Easily retro-fitted to existing systems
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Protection of your existing infrastructure
In-Rack Cooling and cold aisle containment
In conjunction with the In-Rack cooling, cold aisle containment is a further option for the efficient dissipation of high heat loads from server enclosures.
Benefits:
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A raised floor is not required for climate control
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To accommodate higher heat loads per server enclosure
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Redundancies easily achieved
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Direct supply of cold air to your server and network components
Scalable data centre
Low Density - Open room climate control. Your entry into professional IT climate control.
Mid Density - Closed room climate control
CRAC system in conjunction with cold aisle containment.The tailor-made solutions for discerning data centres.
High Density - Closed rack climate control
Liquid Cooling In-Rack. The most powerful solutions for high-end data centres.
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More and more businesses are now recognising the urgency of saving energy and developing plans to reduce their carbon footprint. Gaining control of the amount of power that a data centre uses should be at the forefront of these strategies, as understanding where energy is wasted can make a huge impact to the size of your business’s footprint.
Currently, there are a few tools for measuring data centre efficiency which makes it incredibly difficult to benchmark efficiency performance. Generally, users of datacentres have scant understanding of where savings can be made and make little connection between their electricity bill and operational decisions. As a result the majority of datacentres are grossly inefficient.
To achieve a more energy efficient datacentre it is important to separate each component within the datacentre and then evaluate each area to identify savings.
Using a modular scalable approach to power and cooling presents an approximate energy saving of up to 30%, (this will vary from data centre to data centre). A modular approach enables you to pay only for what you need currently. A modular system means that data centres are only creating a footprint they need at that immediate point in time but have scope and capacity to accommodate future growth without impacting the efficiency and operation of the business or wasting energy.
The virtualisation of the infrastructure simplifies IT so companies leverage their storage, network, and computing resources to control costs and respond faster. The virtual infrastructure approach to IT management creates virtual services out of the physical IT infrastructure, enabling administrators to allocate these virtual resources quickly to the business units that need them most. Virtualisation will save time, money and energy (up to 40%) while achieving more with existing computer hardware.
In order to mitigate hot spots occurring in the datacentre, the physical layout of the room is of paramount importance. Modern designs must take into account the rise in rack densities now ranging from 8kw to in some cases 30+kw or more. While a typical server in the year 2000 consumed only 100W of power, the average server today consumes at least four times as much. Combined with rising energy costs and increased server density, the growth of datacentre energy spending could far outpace the rate at which IT budgets grow, leaving less budget for other vital IT initiatives and projects.
It’s not surprising that servers built for density, particularly blades, are intensifying the problem. Stacking these servers into a small footprint requires more watts per rack and creates the potential problem of ‘hot spots’. In row cooling creates shorter air paths which require less fan power and are comparatively easy to install. A hot aisle/cold aisle arrangement can achieve an energy saving of up to 15%.
Air conditioning units that push air out through dropped ceilings or raised floors are common within data centres. However, many air conditioners now offer economising options which can offer a substantial energy saving up to 15%. It is important to make sure that all installed air conditioners work in harmony together to optimize the efficiency of each unit and in turn reduce overall power consumption. In rack/row and confined row cooling seem to be the optimised choice.
Floor layout has a huge impact on the efficiency of the air conditioning system. Introducing a simple hot aisle/cold aisle arrangement effectively segregates warm and cold air.
Provided the air conditioners are correctly placed to effectively cool this layout then expect massive energy savings, especially if the datacentre has in-row cooling systems.
In-row cooling systems are now a popular option between racks. Cold air is pumped through the front of the rack, pulling hot air from the back. In-rack and in-row cooling is much more energy efficient and can achieve energy savings of up to 12%.
Data centres guzzle electricity which is why it is crucial to consider the energy efficiency of power equipment. For example, new UPS systems have half of the energy losses of legacy UPS equipment? Simply choosing the power economizer mode on a server makes a significant contribution to reducing energy consumption. New best-in-class UPS systems have 70% fewer losses than legacy UPS at typical loads. Light load efficiency is the key parameter, NOT the full load efficiency resulting in savings of up to 8%,
For data centres using a raised floor, locating floor vented tiles correctly could result in energy savings of up to 8%. Typically, vented tiles are located incorrectly in data centres or the wrong number is installed. Clearing airway obstructions under floor, such as redundant cables, can improve air flow dramatically. A professional assessment can ensure an optimal result.
Many legacy datacentres have multiple air conditioners that actually fight each other. In row cooling has higher efficiency for high density. CRAC supply and return temperatures are higher, increasing efficiency, capacity, and preventing dehumidification . Again a professional assessment can diagnose if the air conditioners are working efficiently with each other which could save 10%.
Over the last few years we have become more energy conscious at home by switching off lights and using energy efficient light bulbs, but in the commercial environment lighting is sometimes overlooked as an energy saving. Using more efficient lighting technology in a datacentre results in a possible energy saving of up to 3%. Remember that lighting generates more heat, which results in air conditioners working harder to cool the datacentre. Therefore turning off lights when they are not needed could have a double impact on your energy savings.
The installation of rack blanking panels is a cost-effective solution that saves energy. Blanking panels greatly improves airflow by increasing the CRAC return air temperature and reduces the mixing of hot and cold air. The primary benefit is that hot spots are reduced and an energy saving of up to 2% can be achieved.
Ideally, each time an operational decision is made about increasing the IT infrastructure or simply increasing the amount of data storage, it should be a prerequisite that an energy assessment is carried out to identify areas of energy savings. The ten points mentioned in this article allow you to gain a valuable insight into ways in which energy can be saved; collectively they form the basis for a further in depth analysis of ways in which energy consumption can be reduced within the datacentre. As power and cooling become the primary control or limiter for datacentre growth the challenge for us all is to, conserve energy whilst increasing efficiency within the datacentre Climate change is a reality, and the time has come to change the way we all think about and implement IT, more importantly what impact will these decisions have on the huge carbon footprint that is being created by IT. |
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