What is Power and Cooling Management?
Power and cooling management is the process of designing a modular, energy-efficient system to reduce energy costs and limit server downtime.
In a dense server environment, powerful rackmount systems or blade servers often have trouble cooling themselves, creating "hot spots." These hot spots need direct cooling solutions to ensure the servers run properly. Employing an effective strategy gives your data center flexibility and maximizes your hardware lifecycle.
Which Cooling Options Are Right for Me?
When looking at data center power and cooling solutions, there are four main options to consider. Your CDW account team will work with you to determine the right combination for your unique environment.
Room Oriented - This is a standard cooling option that many organizations utilize. It is designed much like the cooling features you'd find in a typical room. One or more air-conditioning (AC) units are distributing cool air through a duct system to lower the temperature of the entire room. This design is significantly affected by the configuration of IT equipment, thermostat placement and air flow of the room.
Row Oriented - This type of cooling mounts AC units either directly above or below the equipment racks, and can be adjusted to the needs of each row. Air flow is greatly improved compared to Room-Oriented cooling, and allows the units to operate more efficiently.
Rack Oriented - These cooling systems are dedicated to specific racks and are mounted within each rack. This allows the best direct air flow to remove the hot air exhaust. This option is best used with high-density blade servers to help eliminate hot spots.
Mixed Cooling Design - The most effective cooling design will deploy a combination of the above options. These mixed environments allow organizations the flexibility to add additional equipment without greatly impacting the room's cooling system.
Why Should I Consider Power and Cooling Management Solutions?
There are a number of reasons to consider implementing power and cooling management solutions:
Growing Power Demands - As companies adopt server consolidation strategies, these high density server environments require increased individual power consumption. These mission critical servers can create unique hot spots in the server room which may degrade server life and performance.
Increasing Power Costs - Utility rates have risen over the past few years and demand a greater share of the server room operating costs - often requiring as much as 30% of the budget. According to research group IDC, for every dollar spent on new hardware, an additional 50 cents is spent on power and cooling, more than double the ratio of 5 years ago.
Excessive Heat - High density server environments generate a lot of heat and create unique hot spots in your server room. By designing an efficient power and cooling environment, you can help reduce these hot spots and lower your overall cooling cost in the process.
CDW's Approach
CDW has developed a simple, yet comprehensive approach to power and cooling solutions that has proven successful for organizations of all kinds.
Engage Your Account Manager Your CDW account manager and our pre-sales team will work with you to assess your current environment and future needs.
Implement and Manage Working together, CDW will design detailed configurations for your future environment, drawing from best-in-class solutions from our enormous in-stock inventory. We work with multiple service providers to deliver a solution that fits seamlessly into your IT environment.
CDW's commitment continues long after your purchase. Certified technicians offer 24 x 7 telephone support for ongoing management needs, and you can always access online tech support through your My Account tab above. The My Account area also serves as a round-the-clock extension of your account team, detailing your pricing, order status, account history and more.
