An experimental and theoretical investigation of the effects of supply air conditions on computational efficiency in data centers employing aisle containment

Abstract

Aisle containment is increasingly common in data centres, and is widely believed to improve efficiency and effectiveness of cooling. Investigations into the impacts of aisle containment on the behavior and power consumption of cooling infrastructure and servers have been limited. Nor has the impact of supply air conditions on these factors been extensively investigated. This work uses measurements of bypass in a test data centre and observations on server behavior in a wind tunnel, in conjunction with a system model, to investigate the efficiency with which computations can be undertaken in an aisle contained data centre, and how this is impacted by supply air conditions.