All electronic components generate heat, especially computer processors. Traditionally, data centers—composed of rack after rack of servers—have relied on air cooling systems to dissipate server-generated heat. However, as data centers grow and equipment becomes more powerful, air-cooling has finite limits. As Ken Brill noted in 2007, there will be an inevitable breakdown of Moore’s Law—the rate at which computational speed increases—due to the economic limitations of air-cooling capacity at data centers. This is where data center liquid cooling systems come into play.
Get Wet to Stay Cool
Cooling computer components with liquids originated in the 1970s with IBM 3033 and the Cray-2. (After this, though, the majority of water-cooled systems remained in the domain of computer enthusiasts who built homemade water coolers for their high-performance, overclocked CPUs.) In the last decade, the push to go green has made developing industrial-grade liquid cooling systems for data centers a priority. Current technology uses liquid immersion systems, submerging servers in thermally but not electrically conductive liquids like mineral oils.
Despite their greater cooling capacity, these systems have a unique concern: submerged servers are accessible only from above. All maintenance activities have the potential for spills; a large supply of coolant and tanks for servers are required. Special components like HDDs (must operate in gas) need cases to keep coolant out. Additionally, the cost to retrofit an air-cooled data center is substantially more expensive than designing and building a new one. However, with the need for greater cooling capacity—one study estimates 35% of data center energy powers equipment while it takes 50% of total energy to cool that equipment—the industry is inevitably moving in this direction.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Servers immersed in tanks of coolant is one thing; however, Microsoft’s Project Natick is taking this a big step further: In 2015, a pilot project deployed a subsea data center. As detailed at the project’s site, “Deepwater deployment offers ready access to cooling, renewable power sources, and a controlled environment.” With 50% of the world’s population near coastlines, why not use these areas for data storage and processing?
No matter your data center needs, you don’t have to go it alone: Silverback Data Center Solutions is here to help guide you through this brave new world.
