RE: rack power question

["Alex Rubenstein" <alex () corp nac net>]

> About 8 months ago we were faced with an expansion issue where our
> datacenter upgrade was delayed due to permits. At the time sun had
just
> announced their blackbox, now called the S20. During the road trip I
> got
> to walk through one of these. I found the cooling aspect to be very
> interesting. It works on front to back cooling but has what I would
> call
> radiators are sandwiched between each set of racks. From my
> non-technical point of view on HVAC this seemed to reduce a large
> amount
> of wasted cooling seen in large room datacenters. Is this something we
> might see in future fixed datacenters or is this limited to the
> portable
> data center due to technical limitations ? Due to cost we didn't get
to
> use one but I found the idea very interesting.

I take exception to "wasted cooling" ... Are you saying the laws of
thermodynamics don't apply to heat generated by servers?

I can understand and appreciate the thought process of bad airflow
design, ie, no hot or cold rows, or things of that nature. But you can't
really waste AC.

We're doing a small test deployment of a dozen or so Chatsworth chimney
style cabinets, with ducted returns. When the system is up and running I
will comment on it more, but it seems to make a lot more sense that what
we all have been doing for the last 10 years.

As for the Sun S20, is it still painted black? :)