Advances in data center thermal management

Abstract

With the increase in electronic traffic, heat generated by electronic equipment, and the concomitant costs of powering cooling systems in electronic data centers are increasing continually. Various research groups working in academic institutions, research laboratories and industries have been applying a variety of tools to study and improve performance of data centers. This paper reviews recent contributions to the state of knowledge in data center thermal management. First, we review numerical and experimental studies on the most common air-cooled raised floor plenum type data centers. We then summarize published research on rack layout, efficiency and performance metrics for data centers, dynamic control and life cycle analyses, and validation of numerical models. Finally, we review some recently proposed cooling strategies and numerical optimization efforts. We find that the research carried out on thermal management of data centers has helped improve performance in many instances (such as rear door water cooled heat exchanger type rack), and has helped establish some physics-based criteria for data center designers. Based on the trends observed in this review, we expect further improvements to all aspects of data center design and operation in the near future, with a focus on real-time measurement & control, model validation and heuristics based optimization. In addition, some significant changes such as thermal energy storage and smart-grid capabilities are also expected to be incorporated into data center control strategies.