[NCLUG] Re: "Green" power -- off grid

[DJ Eshelman]

See- I agree with you on both fronts.

The last time I was called upon to help with this sort of thing the only 
thing the schmucks at their HVAC vendor could think to do when I 
mentioned this is to put in a vent system on a thermostat.
What I wanted to do was to have them install two 'winter/fall' vents one 
to draw in air to the front of the racks, one at the back to draw it 
out, or alternatively to draw the air into the rest of the building when 
heating was needed.  There would be a clear plastic 'shroud' bordering 
the front of the racks- like you see in supermarket's freezers, for example.

So given all this idea, what do they do?  Put two air conditioners in 
the room, in the BACK of the servers.
Idiots.
Then, at about 3 am sometime around November, my pager goes off that the 
temperature had reached 90 degrees in the server room- the condensers 
had shut down because the temperature outside dropped below 30 degrees.  
Their only solution was to add another AC unit (I kid you not).  When 
that one failed as well- they decided to add a vent.  Amazing how they 
never thought to just listen to me in the first place- it seems like the 
savings every year would be immense.
I've taken this idea to three other places I manage and none want to do 
it.  I just don't get it!

Ironically, yesterday I saw an article that Intel had done some research 
into cooling datacenters with regular air- letting the temps get to 
about 90 degrees.  They found that the cost savings was higher than that 
of the failure rates.  Maybe now people will listen...  I'll try to find 
the article if I can and pass it along.

-DJ


Sean Reifschneider wrote:

> DJ Eshelman wrote:
>   
>> Along these lines- I recently have been approached by two of my clients
>> wondering how they can 'green up' their datacenters.
>>     
>
> Are they using the natural cold we have here for much of the year?  There
> are some bypass systems that will use outside air to either cool the inside
> air (like a heat exchanger, but in reverse), or use the outside air
> directly.
>
> As A/C uses roughly the same amount of energy as the computers themselves,
> this could result in >25% savings on power over the year here.
>
> Another thing I heard of was a data center that had patented putting a wall
> between the hot and cold aisles.  That makes a lot of sense to me, as it
> means the hot air never has the chance to mingle with cooler air, and
> possibly that you can just vent that air and use outside air which is
> almost always below 100 (about what you can handle with A/C on a machine
> room that's run at 70 degrees on the input side).
>
> Sean
>   
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