Many IT operations groups underestimate the importance of adequate cooling of the datacenter. Failure to maintain optimal conditions can result in additional equipment breakdowns, and additional HVAC costs when they are not properly designed. In fact, in many cases, HVAC can use more energy than the servers themselves, especially as Moore’s law has increased the datacenter density (more power in smaller packages).
Review this article, which is an excellent overview of the HVAC challenges and technology available to datacenter operators: https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/a-look-at-data-center-cooling-technologies/
This week’s case study group should summarize the findings in this whitepaper, present us with emerging technologies and options to solve challenging HVAC requirements as servers become more compact and run hotter, and facilitate a class discussion on these topics.