high-performance computing


electricity bill,’ Hopton added. Andy Dean, HPC business


development manager at OCF, noted that the HPC industry is ready to move on from the traditional water cooled doors used in many HPC systems to more innovative and, in some cases, exotic cooling technologies such as ‘to-the-node’ water cooling. Dean stated: ‘In the last 10 years


we have started to see the adoption of water cooling. At this stage, the vast majority of our multi-rack systems have got to that point.’ More recently we have started to see this ‘to-the-node’ water cooling. Birmingham was OCF’s first installation of this technology or at least the first academic installation of water cooled nodes.’ CoolIT’s CEO and CTO, Geoff


Lyon, commented on the scale of manufacturing reducing the cost of high-performance cooling technology. ‘Since 2010/11, high-


volume manufacturing of liquid cooling products have


become a mature category in so far that a few vendors have mastered the ability to reliably manufacture high-quality, low- cost liquid cooling assemblies,’ said Lyon. ‘Tis has transitioned liquid cooling from a novelty to a commonly accepted category of product now being considered for large scale datacentre deployments that increase efficiency, increase density and enable increased performance.’


How do you help users select the correct technology? On the topic of recommendations for specific technologies, Michalski states that much of the choice comes down to a customer’s preferences and requirements: ‘Some customers may want to keep the cooling efficiency at the highest level, reusing the heat that is produced by the server components so they would consider using one of the liquid cooling technologies in their


IN THE LAST 10 YEARS WE HAVE


STARTED TO SEE THE ADOPTION OF WATER COOLING. AT THIS STAGE THE VAST MAJORITY OF OUR MULTI-RACK SYSTEMS HAVE GOT TO THAT POINT


environment. Tis does involve a higher initial cost of the cooling equipment, which some customers won’t accept choosing the standard air cooling approach if their air- conditioning units can cope with that.’ CoolIT’s Lyon shared this view


on customer requirements but went one step further to explain that these conditions can be appraised through collaborative consultation. ‘Tings that play into the


recommended approach include the PUE or efficiency goals for the datacentre, the chip-level power density, rack power density, available power to the rack, climate and environmental conditions, heat capture targets, energy re-use, labour expense, existing


STULZ Micro DC


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infrastructure and others,’ said Lyon. While Motivair’s policy is that


customer requirements must come first, Whitmore also argues that expert opinion can help to highlight the need for growth within HPC infrastructure: ‘Each customer needs to evaluate their data centre loads today and forecast where those loads may be in the future. ‘Te fact that most data centre


operators and owners don’t know where their densities will be in two to five years validates their need for a highly scalable and flexible cooling solution. Cooling systems should be a server and rack agnostic, allowing for multiple refreshes over the life of the facility.’


➤


www.coolitsystems.com sales@coolitsystems.com


www.stulz-usa.com sales@stulz-ats.com


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