Dell dives into liquid server cooling

Dell has partnered with data centre cooling specialist Emerson Network Power in an effort to boost its services business while cutting power consumption in the data centre. 

The two companies will combine salesforces in selling Emerson's XD cooling system and offer joint data centre assessments. Dell servers will also be certified for use with Emerson's cooling technologies.

The firm project 30 to 50 per cent power savings or an 80 per cent increase in system performance.

Current data centre cooling systems pump air through floor tiles, referred to as peripheral cooling. But, as the cold air travels from the floor to the server, it loses a large part of its cooling capacity.

The XD system uses liquid cooling that relies on refrigerants commonly used in consumer refrigerators and cars.

The cooling is delivered directly to the cooling coils on the server or server cabinet through a network of hoses attached to outlets in the ceiling.

Emerson has been shipping its XD system since 2001 and has installed it at about 300 sites and 6,000 server racks.

It was initially used mostly by high performance computing customers, but Fred Stack, vice president of marketing at Emerson subsidiary Liebert Corporation, admitted that adoption is relatively low.

"IT is a conservative industry that has focused more on performance than on efficiency," he said.