by Ann Withanee — February 18, 2011—ASHRAE continues to widen the temperature and humidity ranges for servers through a soon-to-be-published third edition of the datacom book, Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments.
The first edition was published in 2004 and created the first global, vendor-neutral environmental specification for data centers, according to Don Beaty, chair of the Publications Subcommittee of ASHRAE’s Technical Committee (TC) 9.9, Mission Critical Facilities, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment. Prior to its publication, data center temperature requirements were set individually by each equipment manufacturer.
The approach used by TC 9.9 for the first edition through the present was to assemble a team of thermal engineers from the major commercial IT manufacturers to develop requirements. The first edition created a recommended temperature upper limit of 77F (25C), promoting the use of higher temperatures and endorsed by all of the IT manufacturers.
The third edition will enable compressorless cooling (all cooling through economizers) in many applications. Accomplishing this has been a challenge since major tradeoffs (equipment size, equipment cost and operating cost) surface above a certain temperature threshold. This challenge is complicated because the threshold is not the same for all the manufacturers.
For more information, see the ASHRAE Web site.
