Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/860140
THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 17 www.datacenterjournal.com PRT_half-page_Final_OL.indd 2 5/15/17 8:22 AM 6. Look for poorly calibrated temperature and humidity sensors. You should check your temperature and relative-humidity sensors at least once every six months. Recalibrate if necessary. 7. Use hot aisle/cold aisle. Few are guilty of transgressing this guideline, but a study by Schneider Electric found that 25% of data centers still don't use this technique. 8. Check for empty cabinet spaces. When one or more cabinet spaces are empty, your airflow balance can become, well, out of balance. is situ- ation can lead to the recirculation of exhaust air into the cold aisle or loss of cool air from the cold aisle. 9. Avoid poor rack layout. Deviations from the desired hot-aisle/ cold-aisle configuration with CRACs or AHUs at the end of each row, such as small islands of racks or racks ori- ented from front to back, will reduce your effective airflow. suMMAry Although there is no "mystery" to the effects of airflow in a data center, the real question is to what degree they're being addressed. e fundamentals of optimizing airflow through a variety of actions, such as perforated-tile placement and the use of blanking panels, have been well documented—albeit not yet universal- ly implemented. CFD modeling gives a data center operator a multifaceted tool for managing the site's airflow. If used continuously, these tools not only ensure the optimization of the site's initial layout, but they also enable the operator to determine benchmarks for ongoing performance evalua- tion and capacity planning. In short, the mystery of data center airflow is a function of the tools the operator employs in the facility. n about the author: Jose Ruiz, Vice President of Operations for Compass Datacenters