To save on server room cooling, just go with the airflow

Posted Oct 21, 2011

Proper ventilation maximizes the efficiency of your server room cooling. Using temperature sensors at the top and bottom of the rack, Climate Guard can help identify problem areas that may be draining your budget.

Find the hot spots that are burning up your budget.
Good ventilation in each rack helps your air conditioning do its job efficiently. If heat builds up in the rack, your AC will pump cold air throughout the room just to cool one or two spots. Identifying these hot spots allows you to tweak your cooling and ventilation, reducing overall cooling requirements and saving money.

The first step in identifying a problem area is measurement. Place temperature sensors at the top and bottom of each rack. You can measure back and front as well, which is especially useful for hot/cold aisle configurations. Climate Guard will monitor and chart each sensor, allowing you to spot significant differences at a glance. The chart below shows sensors at the top and bottom of a rack that track fairly well together — as they should.

The second step is to monitor for changes. Climate Guard can email you if one of your temperature sensors rises too high. This gives you the earliest possible notification that you may have a cooling/ventilation problem, allowing you to resolve a problem before it becomes costly. And by using the alert delays and hysteresis built into the system, you don't have to worry that Climate Guard will bombard you with false alarms.

To see how multiple sensors in a rack help monitor airflow, check out our live demo. (Username: demo, Password: demo)