Many data centers still face cooling issues that cause them to waste energy or prevent them from using their full cooling capacity. The ultimate goal for data center operators is to have better control of their facility’s cooling Infrastructure, optimizing availability and efficiency.

To help you maintain and maximize the cooling resources in your data center, here are some of the most common cooling mistakes data center operators make and how you can avoid them in the future:

  1. Letting cold air leak out. In a raised floor environment, cold air breaches from the plenum under the raised floor and into support columns or other adjacent spaces are common in data centers. Left untreated, this loss of treated air drives up energy costs and reduces the capacity of your cooling system. Avoid cold air breaches by inspecting the perimeter and support columns beneath the raised floor and sealing any and every hole you might find there.
  2. Not properly sealing racks. Speaking of inspecting and sealing cold air leaks, it’s important to keep empty rack spaces sealed to maintain proper airflow. Some cabinets aren’t designed to seal off the space between the mounting rails and sides, which means it’s up to you to efficiently seal those openings and any other potential openings beneath the cabinet.
  3. Poorly designing your rack layout. It’s crucial to place your racks in a hot-aisle/cold-aisle configuration. The proper rack layout allows precise delivery of conditioned air to your IT equipment. rack islands that don’t have a specific orientation or positioning your racks from front to back won’t help with cooling.
  4. Leaving cabinet spaces empty. It’s important not to leave any of your cabinet spaces empty. This can cause airflow imbalance, which can result in many different problems later down the line including recirculation of exhaust air into the cold aisle or a loss of cold air. Airflow imbalance can also lead to overcooling, which is a big waste of energy. If you need help with data center airflow, consider a data center cooling assessment.

Looking for data center cooling solutions? Up to 80% of all data centers employ or are looking to install hot or cold aisle containment systems to keep servers the correct temperatures and to help reduce energy use.

LDP Associates has the data center energy management services you need to keep your data center running effectively. For more information about data center cooling and our other data center energy management services, contact LDP Associates today.