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COLD AISLE CONTAINMENT
Improving
data centre
effectiveness
By Michael Adams, EMEA
Director, Panduit
www.panduit.com
Cold aisle containment & data centre infrastructure
management are key to improving
efficiency and reducing cost
Big Data is driving the expansion of data centre development
across the globe. But surprisingly, operators have been slow in
utilising data gathered within the data centre. With this data
they could build higher performing infrastructure and manage
operating expenses (OpEx), maximise space, power and
cooling. The latest environment monitoring systems coupled
to cold aisle containment infrastructure can ensure increased
efficiency, and higher performance data centres improving
power usage effectiveness (PUE).
It’s predicted that annual global IP traffic will pass the
zettabyte (ZB) level by the end of 2016, and will reach 2.3 ZB
per year by 2020. Driving this growth in traffic will be more
than 200 billion connected devices. One of the fundamental
aspects for the owners and operators within this everincreasing volume of data is how to improve the efficiency of
the data centre.
Average Data Centre Energy Use Allocation
As customer data becomes more valuable, equipment
outages and unplanned events at the infrastructure and
equipment level will become more costly to the operator.
Therefore, monitoring and controlling the environmental
conditions that effect equipment can mitigate outages.
Containment is a strategy to improve the efficiency of data
centre cooling systems by isolating either the heat produced
by IT equipment (hot aisle containment) or the cooling
provided to the equipment (cold aisle containment).
A criticism of containment is that it can reduce the
flexibility of data centres. However, the latest containment
systems can be extended as new racks are added, and the
systems can also be fitted around existing overhead cabling
and other potential obstructions. Also, the benefit in reduced
cooling costs by up to 40% through the use of containment
outweighs most arguments against.
Cold Aisle Containment together with a real-time
environment data analysis within the data centre white
space offers a highly effective solution, allowing equipment
and infrastructure to be operated at optimum capacity.
Balancing the need for cooling around the equipment, while
maintaining a comfortable working temperature in other
areas of the facilities means that data centre infrastructure
management (DCIM) is now an essential element in the
effective management of the facility.
The enormous expense of operating a data centre means
that operators must design and deploy an architecture
that is built to meet projected needs, which requires both
the scalability to meet changing business demands and
optimisation of IT investment. World-class quality testing is
essential for significantly reducing infrastructure risk.
Power and cooling capacity remain the top targets for
effic