Cooling Technology FAQ Server Hot Hidden Potential

A by-product of the widespread use of computers-heat-has become the number one enemy of the enterprise data Center. Excessive heat can continue to "torment" the CPU, "torture" the processor, reduce computer efficiency, and increase the burden of cooling systems, and ultimately consume more power. As the server cabinets in the data center become more dense, the temperature is hotter than ever, and the cooling problem becomes more severe, and the entire IT industry struggles to avoid data center paralysis caused by the overheating of the server. Using water cooling method is one of the solutions, so is there another way?

In the http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/7332.html "> Technology development field, whether it is the emerging start-up companies, HP (HP, hereinafter called HP) and international Commercial Machinery Company (IBM) and other industry giants, are developing data center cooling technologies that inject liquid coolant into the computer's "hot spot".

Liquid coolant sometimes uses specially treated water, which is insulated and non-corrosive. At other times, more special liquid substances are used. But the goal is consistent, and that is how to cool the heat more effectively.

This technological trend is actually a regression of old technology. 20 years ago, the problem of mainframe heat dissipation was based on a water jacket (labeled jacket), which works in a similar way to the car's water tank, which transfers heat from the engine to other sources. However, the current water technology has been resisted, some IT professionals do not want to reintroduce liquid cooling technology to the modern data center equipped with large air-conditioning equipment. Their reason: These expensive servers, equipped with a lot of sophisticated electronic components, so it is best to keep them dry.

Maybe we should think about it another way. Unlike a single server, a row of server cabinets in a data center, as well as a neatly placed Blade server, produce less heat per square foot than a single server, and liquid cooling may be the only option. Jim Gargan, IBM's Jim Gaggen, gave a vivid example, saying: "When the heat is unbearable, is it a pool of cold water, or is it cooler to sit under the fan?" The result, of course, is self-evident.

Gargan is the vice-president of the IBM System x Server cooling technology. By next year, he predicts, most enterprise data centers will spend more on electricity and cooling systems than computer systems themselves. He called data center power consumption and heat dissipation technology "The IT battlefield for the next 10 years". The data center's strategy for handling thermal problems includes purchasing servers configured with low thermal processors, and planning data center layouts to increase ventilation rates, closer to cooling systems, and liquid cooling technologies. This technique includes a water sleeve technology that surrounds the server and a technology that sprays coolant more directly into the server's electronic components.

The ISR company, which specializes in thermal management technology, recently launched the Spraycool M-Series Enterprise Edition, a chip-direct cooling technology with modules attached to each microprocessor to remove more than half of the heat by spraying a fog-like liquid into the metal plate surrounding the processor. The technology's G-series, which has been marketed for several years, has been marketed as a cooling effect by injecting insulating liquids into the server board, and is currently used primarily in government data centers.

Libot (Liebert, Libot), a subsidiary of HP and Emerson (Emerson), is developing chip direct cooling technology for the enterprise market. A year ago, Libot bought the Cooligy company, which developed a cooling technology to cool the heat by spraying chemically treated water into the metal plates placed on top of the processor. The metal plate has 100 or more fine channels to guide the coolant to the chip's hot spot. The company says the cooling technology has been applied to thousands of server workstations.

HP has set up a "cooling team" within the company, which is currently studying the near-end liquid cooling system, direct chip cooling technology, and dynamic sensing control of the server and cooling systems. In January 2006, HP launched its first "environmental control" cold water cooling platform, known as the standard thermal system, which was added to each server cabinet, using cold water to cool the air in front of the cabinet to achieve heat dissipation. In general, there are some empty slots in the cabinet to keep ventilation in case the cabinet is overheating, but an effective thermal system allows more servers to be plugged into the cabinet without causing the cabinet to overheat.

HP has been developing chips for direct cooling technology for several years, and the company has been using inkjet heads to inject coolant into the microprocessor. "Cooling Team" head, Hewlett-Packard researcher Chanzocante Petre (Chandrakant Patel) predicted that in the next few years will be the trend of new and old cooling technology integration, enterprises will be integrated with conventional ventilation, direct contact and chip direct heat dissipation and other means to solve the heat problem.