Avoid overheated servers with liquid cooling
During the summer months, most people spend time figuring out the most efficient -- and cost-friendly -- way to cool their living space. Whether it's multiple fans throughout their home or high-tech air conditioning units, it's always a process to find the optimal cooling environment and avoid a steep utility bill.
Data centers aren't necessarily different. Organizations have consistently increased their rack densities to meet larger data processing demands. This helps the revenue footprint and enables organizations to increase processing power in less space, but it brings concerns around cooling as kilowatts per hour go up.
Liquid-cooled data centers have gained popularity as more managers find that air cooling has its limits and is expensive for high-density server racks. Liquid cooling technology enables organizations to directly cool hardware down to the CPU.
There isn't one specific way to cool a data center, and the liquid cooling market continues to evolve. Water-based cooling systems are a mainstay within the market, but the latest innovations include specialized cooling fluids and chassis-integrated hardware.
There are numerous factors to consider during the technology selection process when building a liquid-cooled data center. Aside from cost and type of technology, you must account for installation, maintenance and management factors.
This handbook offers a snapshot of the liquid cooling technology market, covers the main differences between liquid and air cooling and outlines what you need to know when working with service providers. This information can help IT teams develop the right technology adoption strategy and keep their liquid-cooled data center as efficient as possible.
