15 Questions to Ask Your Designer
What does the designer see as the important issues or considerations of the project? What are the associated challenges? How will the designer approach the project to resolve those challenges? How will the designer gather the needed information about your needs and goals, now and future, to complete the design? What are the steps in […]
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DC Power Revisited
DC power has been proposed for use since Edison debated with Tesla about which should be used. Ultimately AC has been used more since it allows transmission over long distances which suited having large, centralized power plants. But with so many of today’s devices and systems using we see a resurgence of DC power AC […]
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Shades of Gray
Today there are water issues throughout the world, which also affects data centers. Ten states in the U.S. are in longstanding battles over water rights while river and lake water quality has been diminishing across southern Europe, India, and the Middle East. In the U.S. drought conditions have affected 50 to 60% of states yet […]
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Artificial Intelligence in Data Centers
First, how do we define AI? In commercial buildings AI is often thought of as applying analytic engines on gathered information then use those models, algorithms, and rules to make better decisions on how the systems are operated. Most of us aren’t programmers and we use the term AI with the intention of adding sophistication […]
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Learning the Trade
There is a lot of information to learn in the world and every day the data center industry seems to generate more to know. In doing so there are some shortcuts that can help you understand and prioritize the things that are important in your field of work, whether design, commissioning, construction, management, operations or […]
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Cryptocurrency and the Data Center
As blockchain and cryptomining were starting, people were attempting to do the same in their garages and other ad-hoc locations with little thought to scaling or efficiency. But once those power costs started to add up, it was clear that they needed to relocate even if they did have to rent in a new space […]
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Balancing Density & Size
Data centers have become larger, more dense, and taller over the last decade. This growth is fueled by the expansion of data; of course, as every industry realizes how data can be used to improve their processes and every company collects and processes more information than ever before. But the deciding points of whether to […]
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Densification: Power & Cooling
Another option that continues to grow year-over-year is not going up or out at all, but solving the need for more compute by increasing IT density. The computing power density has risen from 5 kW per rack a decade ago to an average closer to 15 kW per rack for today’s new data centers. The […]
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Land: A Shrinking Resource?
The amount of land available to us is finite and we need to carefully manage how the land is deployed for the many things around us. This has led to the development of land use plans for cities across the U.S., and with the explosion of data this now includes adjustments for more land devoted […]
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Waste Heat Reuse
Servers have a wide range of energy use, depending on traditional use or specialized for applications, with a typical server using around 350 watts of power. This average server also produces about 1,200 BTUs of heat every hour and for years many of us have aimed at capturing and reusing this heat. With potentially 50 servers or more in a rack, this […]
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