Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 26 | Page 77

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres POWERED BY What should data centre managers and engineers be considering when designing cooling systems? • Airside Economisers with Heat Wheels • Heat Pipes Looking at the APAC, Middle East and India regions, what challenges does the industry face in terms of cooling? When designing cooling systems, the data centre managers and engineers should first consider what type of technology they desire. If they are interested in energy efficient cooling products and opt for evaporative cooling, for example, they then have two options available, indirect or direct. Indirect is highly suited to areas where there are external influences and contaminants such as air pollution from airports, crops, smog, insects and industrial emissions are a cause for concern. The indirect solution keeps the air on a closed loop and will never mix with these potentially damaging factors. With indirect evaporative cooling, a secondary (scavenger) air stream is cooled by water. The cooled secondary air stream goes through a heat exchanger, where it cools the primary air stream. The cooled primary air stream is circulated by a blower. The Oasis offers a low energy cooling solution using indirect evaporative cooling technology, scalable for future growth whilst tackling tropical and hot climates, local air pollution, multi-storey data halls and meeting shipping requirements. With savings of up to 75% energy costs compared to water cooled chillers with CRAH’s this is a truly energy efficient solution also leading to massive savings in infrastructure and space. How can software and big data support financial and energy savings in data centre cooling? There are software applications that can assist with the monitoring of power and cooling. Munters can assist with sourcing the right type for the customer. Can you describe the range of solutions you offer for data centres? Munters is proud to offer a range for indirect and direct evaporative cooling solutions tailored to the data centre industry that are configurable and designed to shipping standards. In addition, we can provide www.intelligentcio.com Simon Young, Data Centre Regional Sales Manager, Munters THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY NEEDED FOR COOLING THE WORLD’S DATA CENTRES IS HUGE AND EXPECTING TO TRIPLE IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS. dehumidification and humidification plus a range of service packages. Our flagship Oasis® Indirect Evaporative Cooler has configurations for all regions; for example, the Middle East region would use the Oasis DCiE model for cooling in extreme heat conditions. Indirect Evaporative Solutions: • Oasis Indirect Evaporative Coolers Direct Evaporative Solutions: • Evaporative Pads – GlasDek, CellDek, DataDek • FA6 – standard ‘Wet Sections’ • WetDek – customised ‘Wet Sections’ • Standalone Humimax evaporative coolers • Custom, large scale AHU Airside Economisers Make-up Air Solutions (MUA) • Modular MUA’s, controlling humidity and filtration Other Custom Solutions • Fluid Coolers The challenges faced are a combination of land availability, air pollution, outside air temperature and choice of cooling solutions. The data centres priorities also tend to be energy efficiency; availability (power connectivity and uptime) and total cost, following on are M&E capacity, security and control. Other factors are dealing with humidity and tropical climates, air pollution and the ability to increase scalability ranging from modular to hyper scale data centres. Munters’ Oasis™ product range has the ability to satisfy all of these concerns. The configurable system is not only energy efficient but it can be applied to most installation types including multi-level high rise buildings for built up areas and deal with extreme outside temperatures. The Oasis™ DCiE Indirect Evaporative Cooling system uses Munters Advanced patented EPX technology, high efficiency fan walls and re-claimed water keeping down the overall costs of running a data centre. When would I use the energy efficient Indirect or Direct Evaporative Cooling? The choice of direct or indirect air economisation for a data centre depends on their benefits, geographic location, capital costs, operating costs, and availability risks. The main barrier to using direct fresh air is the concern of air pollution and high humidity risks on server longevity, which is the biggest difference compared to indirect air economiser systems, so if you are in a high pollutant area such as a city or near to an airport or crop farming location you are most likely to choose a solution that does not allow dust and contaminants into the data hall and are noticing a trend for the indirect solution in the majority of instances. Cooling demands will always include cost effectiveness, flexibility, reliability, sustainability and design which Munters continues to develop and optimise. n INTELLIGENTCIO 77