Heat can either flow through the walls or ceiling of the space.  It can flow to cooler air via a grille or a vent that could have a fan to assist the movement of the airflow.  Heat can also be removed by your building’s air cooling system or removed by a dedicated air conditioner.

Portable spot coolers from Spot Cooling Systems are an excellent, economical choice for cooling your IT wiring closet or server room.   They are available in many different sizes to meet the demands of your equipment and space.

This is the maximum.  Operating at that temperature generally will not provide the same level of performance and longevity as operating at lower temperatures.  Because of this, IT equipment manufacturers publish a recommended operating temperature for their equipment.  Recommended operating temperatures are between 70F (21C) and 75F (24C) with the goal of no higher than 77F (25C).

The ExtraCooler portable air conditioner is available in various sizes and electrical voltages to meet every wiring closet and server room needs.  Spot Coolers are perfect for maintaining the recommended operating temperatures in your IT Closet or Server Room.  They are mobile, easy to operate and built to last.  For everyday, weekend, emergency or contingency planning, give us a call and your cooling needs will be taken care of by the experts at Spot Cooling Systems. 

This series on Environmental Threats and Their Costs starts with the biggest threat to computer hardware, temperature.

Temperature

Temperature is the main environmental threat to computer hardware. The generally accepted, ideal temperature is between 68 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 24 degrees Celsius).

Excessive heat degrades network performance and causes downtime. As the temperature increases, a heat sinks fan works harder to cool the central processing unit (CPU). Continuous overworking causes the fan to fail, leading to a machine overheating. A machine shuts down when it reaches an unsafe temperature in order to prevent permanent damage. An administrator must then be located, day or night, go to the machine, and reboot it after it has cooled. Consequently, services hosted by a down machine are unavailable until it is restarted, which can take minutes or hours. If the server hosts critical services (e.g., e-commerce, user validation, email) that are not distributed to backup servers, revenues can be lost, users cannot login, and communications are interrupted. If the shut down is not done properly, data can be lost.

Excessive heat and rapid temperature changes also damage equipment. Rapid temperature increases can increase humidity, while rapid drops can cause water in humid air to condense on equipment. Together, heat and moisture accelerate the break down of materials used in microchips, motherboards, and hard drives, which is called premature aging. In worst cases, a machine won’t shut down when the temperature exceeds safe levels, and circuits are damaged. Ultimately, heat-damaged equipment must be replaced, increasing the cost of network maintenance.

Controlling temperature is becoming more important and more difficult because of changes in equipment design and greater use of network services. New equipment runs hotter because it runs faster and does more work. Also, more circuits are placed closer and closer together, trapping heat in a smaller space. Smaller equipment also means that more equipment can be placed in the same space, usually packed tighter together. The increase in density of equipment causes a rise in the amount of heat dissipating in a rack cabinet. Increased network usage also increases heat, so as usage levels change during the day, so does the temperature and the need for cooling. For networks that operate near capacity 24 hours a day, every day of the year, there is little, if any, time for machines to cool down.

Look for our next article which addresses the problem of humidity in the server room.

To comprehensively and effectively address the environmental impacts of computing/IT, we must adopt a holistic approach and make the entire IT lifecycle greener by addressing environmental sustainability along the following four complementary paths:

Green use — reducing the energy consumption of computers and other information systems as well as using them in an environmentally sound manner
Green disposal — refurbishing and reusing old computers and properly recycling unwanted computers and other electronic equipment
Green design — designing energy-efficient and environmentally sound components, computers, servers, cooling equipment, and data centers
Green manufacturing — manufacturing electronic components, computers, and other associated subsystems with minimal impact on the environment

Background information: The U.S Environment Protection Agency launched energy star’, a voluntary labeling program in year 1992, which is designed to promote and recognize energy-efficiency in monitors, climate control equipment, and other technologies. This resulted in the widespread adoption of sleep mode in computers and electronics popular among consumer electronics. The term “green computing” was probably introduced after the Energy Star program began; there are several USENET posts dating back to 1992 which use the term in this manner. Concurrently, the Swedish organization TCO Development launched the TCO certification program to promote low magnetic and electrical emissions from CRT-based COMPUTER DISPLAYS; this program was later expanded to include criteria on energy consumption, ergonomics, and the use of hazardous materials in construction. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a survey of over 90 government and industry initiatives on “Green ICTs”, i.e. information and communication technologies, the environment and climate change. The report concludes that initiatives concentrate on greening ICTs rather than tackling global warming and environmental degradation through the use of ICT applications. In general, only 20% of initiatives have measurable targets, with government programmes including them more frequently than business associations.Many governmental agencies have continued to implement standards and regulations that encourage green computing. The energy star program was revised in October 2006 to include stricter efficiency requirements for computer equipment, along with a tiered ranking system for approved products. More than 26 US States that have established state-wide recycling programs for obsolete computers and consumer electronics equipment. Green Computing Impact Organisation (GCIO) is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting the end-users of computing products in being environmentally responsible motivating community of environmentally concerned IT leaders who pool their time, resources, and buying power to educate, broaden the use, and improve the efficiency of, green computing products and services. Members work to increase the ROI of green computing products through a more thorough understanding of real measurable and sustainable savings incurred by peers; enforcing a greater drive toward efficiency of vendor products by keeping a community accounting of savings generated; and through group negotiation power.

It is becoming widely understood that the way in which we are behaving as a society is  environmentally unsustainable, causing irreparable damage to our planet. Rising energy prices, together with government-imposed levies on carbon production, are increasingly impacting on the cost of doing business, making many current business practices economically unsustainable. It is becoming progressively more important for all businesses to act (and to be seen to act) in an environmentally responsible manner, both to fulfill their legal and moral obligations, but also to enhance the brand and to improve corporate image. Companies are competing in an increasingly ‘green’ market, and must avoid the real and growing financial penalties that are increasingly being levied against carbon production.

IT has a large part to play in all this. With the increasing drive towards centralized mega data centers alongside the huge growth in power hungry blade technologies in some companies, and with a shift to an equally power-hungry distributed architecture in others, the IT function of business is driving an exponential increase in demand for energy, and, along with it, is having to bear the associated cost increases.

How to Contribute in Green Computing

As computers play an ever-larger role in our lives, energy demands, costs, and waste

are escalating dramatically. Consider the following from the Climate Savers Computing

Initiative:

In a typical desktop computer, nearly half the power coming out of the wall is wasted

and never reaches the processor, memory, disks, or other components. The added heat from inefficient computers can increase the demand on air conditioners and cooling systems, making your computing equipment even more expensive to run. Even though most of today’s desktop computers are capable of automatically transitioning to a sleep or hibernate state when inactive, about 90 percent of systems have this function disabled. Some 25 percent of the electricity used to power home electronics—computers, DVD players, stereos, TVs—is consumed while the products are turned off. Turn off your computer at night so it runs only eight hours a day—you’ll reduce your energy use by 810 kWh per year and net a 67 percent annual savings. Purchase flat-screen monitors—they use significantly less energy and are not as hard on your eyes as CRTs.Purchase an Energy Star–compliant computer. Note that laptop models use much less energy than desktop units.  Plug your computer into a surge protector with a master control outlet, which automatically senses when the computer is not in use and cuts power to it and all your peripherals. Plan your computer-related activities so you can do them all at once, keeping the computer off at

other times.  Consider a smaller monitor—a 14-inch display uses 40 percent less energy than a 17-inch one. Enable the standby/sleep mode and power management settings on your computer. Forgo the screen saver—it doesn’t save energy or your screen unless you’re using an old monochrome monitor. Review document drafts and e-mails onscreen instead of printing them out. Power off your monitor when you are not using it instead of using screen savers. Consider using an ink-jet printer—although a bit slower than laser printers, inkjets use 80 to 90 percent less energy. Buy vegetable or non-petroleum-based inks—

they are made from renewable resources, require fewer hazardous solvents, and often

produce brighter, cleaner colors.  Turn off all printers and peripherals unless you are using them. Do not leave the computer running overnight or on weekends. Choose dark backgrounds for your screen display—bright-colored displays consumer more power.  Reduce the light level in your room when you are working on your computer.

Network and share printers where possible. Print on recycled-content paper. Look for non-chlorine bleached papers with 50 to 100 percent post-consumer waste. Use double-sided printing functions. E-mail communications as an alternative to paper memos and fax documents.

Create Green Machines:

Activating the power management features on your computer saves energy and money while helping the environment. Your computer’s SLEEP and HIBERNATE settings are two of the most effective ways for you to make your computer more environmentally friendly. You can activate these functions manually or through your operating system’s pre-set power management settings.

Sleep Mode

Sleep or standby mode conserves energy by cutting off power to your display, hard drive, and peripherals. After a pre-set period of inactivity, your computer switches to a low power state. When you move your mouse or press any computer key, you exit sleep mode and your computer takes you back to its previous operating state. Sleep mode is an especially effective way to conserve battery power in a laptop computer. However, if your computer loses power for any reason while in sleep mode, you may lose unsaved work.

Hibernate Mode

Hibernate mode saves energy and protects your work by copying system data to a reserved area on your hard drive and then completely turning off your computer. It also reduces wear and tear on your components. When you turn power back on, your files and your documents appear on your desktop just as you left them. Be sure to set your system to automatically go into hibernate mode any time your battery power reaches a critically low level.

Server room cooling needs

Before purchasing air conditioners for a server room, you’ll need to calculate how much heat must be displaced. With the excessive amount of heat produced by the server room equipment, you can’t choose a portable air conditioner based on the general square foot recommendations alone. Instead, you’ll need to pay attention to the entire BTUs generated in the server room.

In principle it’s easy to calculate the size of air conditioning unit you’ll need for your server room just add together all the sources of heat and install an air conditioning unit that can remove that much cooling. In practice however, it’s rather more complicated.

Calculating The Heat Load

The amount of heat generated is known as heat gain or heat load. Heat is measured in either British Thermal Units (BTU) or Kilowatts (KW).

1 KW is equivalent to 3412 BTUs. 12000 BTU = 1 Ton of Cooling Capacity

Factors Include:

• The floor area of the room
• The size and position of windows, and whether they have blinds or shades
• The number of room occupants (if any)
• The heat generated by equipment
• The heat generated by lighting

To calculate the heat load you will need the following information.Room Area BTU = Length (m) x Width (m) x 337

• • South Window BTU = South Facing window Length (m) x Width (m) x 870
  • North Window BTU = North Facing windows Length (m) x Width (m) x 165
  • If there are no blinds on the windows multiply the result(s) by 1.5.
  • Windows BTU = South Window(s) BTU + North Window(s) BTU
  • Total Occupant BTU = Number of occupants x 400
  • Equipment BTU = Total wattage for all equipment x 3.5
  • Lighting BTU = Total wattage for all lighting x 4.25

Total Cooling Required

Add all the BTUs together

Room Area BTU + Windows BTU + Total Occupant BTU + Equipment BTU + Lighting BTU = Total Heat Load

Total Heat Load divided by 12000 = Total Cooling Tonnage

For example if the calculated BTU = 16400 BTU then 16400/12000 = 1.36 Total Cooling tonnage required. Since the requirement is 1.36 Tons you would consider using our SCT18, 1.5 Ton unit to cool your server room.

Choosing A Unit:

Portable air conditioners, also called spot coolers, are ideal for server room cooling because they focus a lot of cooling energy exactly where it’s needed.

Considerations:

What type of outlet power is available?

Spot Cooling Systems, Inc. makes this calculation simple.

Our 1 Ton SCT14 and 1.5 Ton SCT18 units operate off standard 115 volt, 60 Hz, 1 phase, power on a 15 Amp circuit.

Our 2.5 Ton SCT30, 3.5 Ton SCT42 and 6.5 Ton SCT83 operate pm 208-230 Volt, 60Hz, 1 phase power on a 20, 30, 60 Amp circuit respectively.

The 5.4 Ton ECHD65 operates on 208-230 Volt, 60 Hz, 3 phase power on a 40amp circuit and the 6.5 Ton SCT83B unit uses 460 Volt, 60 Hz, 3 phase power on a 20 Amp circuit.

Is Your Server Room Firewalled?

All Spot Cooling Systems portable air conditioners discharge the heat removed form the room to an open ceiling cavity. In the case of a firewalled server room that heat has nowhere to escape. The simple solution to this is to install a firewall damper to which duct work can be attached to allow heated air to discharge to an open location.

Designed for portability and convenience, EXTRACOOLER® portable air conditioners set up in minutes and roll easily from the shop floor to offices areas.  The EXTRACOOLER® air-cooled portable air conditioner line consists of six models, offering from 14,000-77.500 BTU/hr.

Cools Quietly. EXTRACOOLER® cools quietly at office-acceptable sound levels without significantly addition to background noise.  Ideal for supplemental of temporary cooling in server rooms, offices, meeting areas, or classrooms, Featuring backward-inclined plenum evaporator and condenser fans, EXTRACOOLER’s® operate at the lowest decibel level for portable air conditioners.

Cools Effectively. EXTRACOOLER® delivers a full performance at a wide range of temperatures and altitudes with a thermostatic-expansion valve – not found in ordinary units.  This valve automatically adjusts to the environment, allowing the units to operate under more extreme temperatures.

Cools Efficiently. Just plug in an EXTRACOOLER®  and cool – no special electrical requirements are needed.  Most EXTRACOOLER models are single phase (460V 3 Phase option on the TZ-60A4).  EXTRACOOLER® costs less to operate because it draws the least amount of amperage on a per-ton basis when compared to ordinary industrial air conditioners

Sudden changes in temperature, both at home and at work, they can disappear contained in the computers, sometimes irrecoverable.

Sudden changes in temperature are not only bad for humans. The computer also suffers, but instead of catching a cold may suffer a loss of data. These problems arise mainly in summer and are caused “by the rise and fall of temperature in offices and at home because they are put on and remove the air conditioning,” says Miguel Ruiz, Recovery Labs technical director .

Computer parts themselves being out of step with those variations of degree and that computers do fail and can not access the data. To avoid them, do not put the computer to the equipment if you turn off and on much or attempt to restart after the ruling.

YOU MAY LOSE YOUR DATA IF THE TEMPERATURE CHANGES

At 35 degrees and a fever.

While all computers have a fan system that generates a flow of air to prevent overheating, there are problems if the machine much temperature increase and down at once. “Working at 35 degrees is a problem for any electronic device, said Ruiz, although the problem is that the computer does not reach 100 degrees, but then reduced. The PC may be about 45-50 degrees in temperature, while the hard disk can reach 60.

The hardest thing, the blackout, dust and water

Blackouts are the main causes of data loss in computers, according to figures provided by American Power Conversion “, followed by the storms. The powder is also another enemy in the computer malfunctions, also if it affects the hard drive, increases the problem. Damage from water have led some companies to design a keyboard resistant to liquids and even sudden shock.

TIPS FOR NO SPOILER ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES

Do not plug them barefoot
One of the recommendations made from American Power Conversion “. Nor can we plug in electrical equipment with wet hands.

Without antenna storm
In cases of storm, not only necessary to unplug the power cord, but also the antenna. Should be in televisions, computers and audiovisual equipment in general.

Cables without tape
The joints or seams should not be made with tape, transparent tape or other materials not approved. If you have a device with a bare wire, change it immediately.

No gluing them to the wall
This rule also applies to computers that have the ventilation system in front and behind, so they need space to drive and take the air. The same goes for televisions and stereos.

A plug for each
You must use a socket for each application. And connect each device at a different time so as not to produce an electrical overload.

As a portable air conditioning unit, the operation is similar to a window air conditioner, it pulls air into a condenser, cools it, and circulates it back into the room. However the unit is typically on wheels and in a self contained cabinet making for ease of portability. Like any air conditioning unit, a portable air conditioner’s performance capabilities are measured in British Thermal Units (BTU). Most spot coolers range from 12,000 BTU to 100,000 BTU although some large commercial units can go up to 1,000,000 BTU or more.  Note that 12,000 BTU is also known as 1 Ton of cooling capacity.

A portable air conditioner cools and dehumidifies a room or area of a building where either no air conditioning exists or additional air conditioning is required. Some large industrial buildings have areas where no air conditioning exists or central air conditioning units fail. A portable air conditioner can provide localized or temporary cooling.  Rooms with large amounts of electronic equipment such as server rooms, computer rooms, and media rooms generate excessive heat.  A portable air conditioner can solve this problem as well.

Many hospitals, as well as other businesses, elect to use a portable air conditioner for emergency purposes.

A portable air conditioner may also be used to cool a home. In homes with no central air conditioning, usually cooler climates, an owner or tenant may choose to use a portable air conditioner. Although a portable air conditioner may cost more than a window unit it may provide greater flexibility, efficiency and less effort to install and use.

As a portable air conditioning unit, the operation of a spot cooler is similar to a window air conditioner, it pulls air into a condenser, cools it, and circulates it back into the room. However the unit is typically on wheels and in a self contained cabinet making for ease of portability. Like any air conditioning unit, a spot cooler’s performance capabilities are measured in British Thermal Units (BTU). Most spot coolers range from 12,000 BTU to 100,000 BTU although some large commercial units can go up to 1,000,000 BTU or more.  Note that 12,000 BTU is also known as 1 Ton of cooling capacity.

A spot cooler cools and dehumidifies a room or area of a building where either no air conditioning exists or additional air conditioning is required. Some large industrial buildings have areas where no air conditioning exists or central air conditioning units fail. A spot cooler can provide localized or temporary cooling.  Rooms with large amounts of electronic equipment such as server rooms, computer rooms, and media rooms generate excessive heat.  A spot cooler can solve this problem as well.

Many hospitals, as well as other businesses, elect to use a spot cooler for emergency purposes.

A spot cooler may also be used to cool a home. In homes with no central air conditioning, usually cooler climates, an owner or tenant may choose to use a spot cooler. Although a spot cooler may cost more than a window unit it may provide greater flexibility, efficiency and less effort to install and use.

Portable air conditioning spot coolers provided by Spot Cooling Systems, Inc., have various options available for purchase with the unit or can be purchased seperately. Below are some of the most popular options available, and are usually in stock and ready for immediate shipment. Please contact us if you require something not shown here.

Things we will need to know to properly size your project:

• Size of room to be cooled – Length x Width x Height
• Voltage Available – 115, 208/230 or 460
• Type of ceiling – drop down plenum (we will need a place to exhaust heat)
• Where can we drain condensate? Will we need tanks or a pump?
• What kind of equipment is in the room, such as server racks, telephone switching equipment, power supply backups, any types of heat generating equipment and people.
• Are there any windows in the room?