Combat Overcooling in Your Data Center with an AUDIT-BUDDY Thermal Audit

The amount of available air capacity is the most important metric for the multi-tenant Colocation facility. It dictates how much kW of electrical load use, and how many cabinets can be placed. That in turn, controls how much rental income that property will generate. The Colocation Operator must account for reserve capacity to insure none of the clients are compromised should one of the Air Handlers fail.

So what happens if a tenant ends up consuming more air than planned, this creates a domino effect on the Data Hall. Less air is available for the other tenants, causing the reserve capacity to go down which puts the operator in a precarious position to meet their SLA requirements. In many retail facilities, the Colo Operator does not have access to the inlet air temperatures at their tenant’s cages. As a result, managing airflow is a tricky affair. One could always add additional air, but this has a negative effect on cash flow, and makes the data center inefficient.

How do tenants end up consuming more air than needed?

In our experience we have found diverse factors such as clients leaving the server fans on all the time, no blanking plates in certain cabinets, replacing regular tiles with high flow tiles, operating with extremely low inlet air temperatures and the most common culprit, very low delta-T across the cabinets. All of these end up consuming a lot of excess air. Sometimes the tenant is oblivious to these factors as the Colocation facility are meeting their SLA on the inlet air temperature. However, for the Colocation facility operator these issues end up requiring planning for excess cold air, affecting their profitability.

It has been our experience that the tenants are sympathetic about these issues, when faced with information on how the data center is operating and how these issues do affect the overall operation of the data center. The challenge is how to present the data without affecting the client’s operation.

Purkay Labs AUDIT-BUDDY was designed with this objective in mind. With the carbon fiber rod and three sensor design, AUDIT-BUDDY lets the Data Center Manager easily measure their client’s cages without touch their servers or affecting operations. It is possible to purchase, rent or hire Purkay resources to conduct the measurement. Armed with this data, the operator can sit down with the client and explain why some of these issues in their cage is causing a problem in the overall environment. It is our experience that the clients do react. In one of our use cases, the  facility operator managed to free up 30,000 CFM (need to check) once the customer agreed to stop running their server fans all the time. The data from the Audit-Buddy system allows both parties to operate more efficiently, helping lowering the overall carbon foot print.

Using the AUDIT-BUDDY system in a colocation facility will let the operator maximize the airflow, increasing the redundancy as well as meet all the SLA requirements. It will forge a partnership between the client and the operator.

About Purkay Labs

We believe that Data Center Operators deserve quick, reliable and independent data about their white space environment, without the burden of complicated permanent monitoring systems. We create simple, standalone, and cost-effective portable environmental monitoring systems so you can get data wherever and whenever you need it. Our flagship product- the AUDIT-BUDDY system- is the first multi-height portable environmental monitor that provides data to help manage your airflow, reduce Scope II emissions, increase energy efficiency & cooling optimization.

You can follow us @purkaylabs or visit our website: www.purkaylabs.com