EDITOR’S QUESTION
OVER THE SUMMER
MONTHS, WHAT
MEASURES CAN
REGIONAL COMPANIES
TAKE TO MAXIMISE DATA
CENTRE COOLING, WHILE
ALSO MAINTAINING
MORE POWER EFFICIENT
STRATEGIES?
U
sing liquid to carry heat away
from computer chips is a common
data centre cooling method in
the world of supercomputers, but today,
as some internet-based services develop a
more complex set of backend capabilities,
such as Big Data analytics or machine
learning, data centres that host them are
taking cues from supercomputing facilities.
One example is eBay. A special unit within
Dell that makes custom tech for operators
of the world’s largest data centres, has
designed a water-based system for cooling
80
INTELLIGENTCIO
custom server chips it developed together
with Intel Corp. and eBay itself. Dell’s
Extreme Scale Infrastructure (ESI) group
has revealed Triton, a new water cooling
system for the hyper scale and near-hyper
scale market.
The system is different from typical liquid
cooling solutions, however. It brings water
from the facility’s cooling towers directly to
every chip inside server chassis. There are
no central distribution units, which typically
sit between cooling towers and server racks
in liquid-cooled data centres.
What the company has announced this
summer is actually the third generation
of the system, which is being deployed
by eBay to improve performance during
peak times while lowering costs.
Triton eliminates the need for the liquid-
to-liquid heat exchangers, cooling loops
or pumping systems that are present
in most water cooling solutions, since it
brings water directly to each server sled.
This approach, Dell claims, leads to the
“lowest water consumption of any liquid
cooled solution on the market today”.
www.intelligentcio.com