Dell intros 'Chiller-Less' data centre solution

TEXAS, USA: Dell announced an integrated data centre solution that enables customers to operate facilities at higher temperatures and even without chillers.

In line with the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) A3 and A4 classifications, the servers, storage and networking equipment of the Dell Fresh Air cooling solution are capable of short-term, excursion-based operation in temperatures up to 113 F (45 C).

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In addition to ASHRAE’s updated standard, The Institute for Energy, a European guidance body, has issued the “European Union Code of Conduct for Data Centres.

New data centre construction exemplified by companies such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo has demonstrated a shift toward fresh air-cooled data centres that do not rely on chiller technology.

However, the standard allowable temperature maximum of 95 F (35 C) for today’s IT equipment limits the locations where they can be used without having to have a backup chiller facility for high temperature excursions.

Dell systems have been developed for sustained operation at temperature ranges from minus 23 F (5 C) to 113 F (45 C) and allowable humidity from 5 percent to 90 percent.

Dell claims that tn some climates, the capital cost to build a chiller plant as part of the data center facility can be eliminated altogether. This can result in more than $100K of operational savings per megawatt (MW) of IT and eliminate capital expenditures of approximately $3M per MW of IT2.

“Many organizations, particularly those in the cloud services business, are focused on driving much greater efficiencies in their data center operations. Dell data centre technologies with Fresh Air capability allow for aggressive improvements in energy consumption and the resulting operational costs, even in data centers that have already been economized with respect to cooling," Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager, server platforms for Dell