How does temperature affect a data center?

Did you know that the total electricity consumption of data centers represents around 3% of the world's total? This means 40% more than the energy consumed by the UK. This energy consumption comes from different factors, but one of the most important is the cooling infrastructure.

Operating with devices such as those found in a data center for long periods of time involves an increase in the internal temperature of these devices, which is added to that of the room where they are. Working at high temperatures reduces the reliability and durability of components and can lead to failures and power outages.

In fact, in a study by Gartner analysts, they found that a data center that has suffered a blackout loses about $ 5,600 every minute. Precisely for this reason, maintaining a stable and adequate temperature is key for any data center.

However, the temperature should not be the same throughout the data center. High-density servers, designed for very high throughput, produce a lot of heat, so typically server rooms should be cooler than recommended. However, some companies like Google, choose to have backup software instead of maintaining a low temperature in their data centers since it is cheaper for them.

All these measures involve very high expenses and, as in any business, they try to reduce costs. A solution that is increasingly being taken into account is the saving of energy consumed in refrigeration thanks to the climatic conditions of the area where the datacenter is located.

A clear example would be what Microsoft has done during the last two years, in which they submerged a datacenter with 864 servers 117 feet deep in the Northern Isles near Scotland. With this operation they have been able to make a more sustainable use of the energy consumed.

Finally, more and more companies are investing to make their data centers more efficient and thus reduce their energy consumption. Perhaps in the future we will see a globalization of ecological and sustainable data centers so as not to contribute to the pollution of our planet.

Claudia Piera Garrigosa