The construction of data centers is considered one of the most rapidly developing industries. The progress in this field is enormous, but whether any breakthrough technological solutions will appear on the market soon is a big question. Today, we will examine the main innovative trends in global data center construction to answer that.
The Shift to Hyperscale
The advancement of information technology has led to the necessity of building very large data centers. Primarily, hyperscale infrastructure is needed by cloud service providers and social networks: Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and other major players. In April 2017, there were as noted by All hyperscale data centers are corporate-owned and do not lease rack space. They are used to create public clouds related to the internet of things and artificial intelligence services, as well as in other niches requiring the processing of large volumes of data. Owners are actively experimenting with increasing power density per rack, chassis-less servers, liquid cooling, raising temperatures in server rooms, and various specialized solutions. Given the rising popularity of cloud services, Hyperscale is expected to be the main growth driver for the industry in the foreseeable future: we can anticipate intriguing technological solutions from leading IT equipment manufacturers and engineering systems.
Edge Computing
Another notable trend is the opposite: in recent years, a vast number of micro data centers have been built. According to Research and Markets, this market
is set to grow from 2 billion dollars in 2017 to 8 billion by 2022. This is linked to the development of the Internet of Things and industrial Internet of Things. Large data centers are located too far from on-site production process automation systems. They handle tasks that do not require readings from each of millions of sensors. Primary data processing is best done where it is generated, and only then send useful information along long routes to the cloud. A special term has been coined to describe this phenomenon – edge computing. In our view, this is the second most important trend in the development of data center construction, leading to the emergence of innovative products in the market.
The Battle for PUE
Large data centers consume an enormous amount of electricity and generate heat that must be disposed of somehow. Traditional cooling systems account for up to 40% of a facility's energy consumption, and in the fight to reduce energy costs, the main enemy is considered to be the compressors of refrigeration machines. Solutions known as free cooling, which allow for a complete or partial rejection of their use, are gaining popularity. The classic scheme uses chiller systems with water or aqueous solutions of polyatomic alcohols (glycols) as the heat carrier. In cold weather, the compressor-condenser unit of the chiller does not turn on, significantly reducing energy costs. More interesting solutions are based on a two-circuit air-to-air scheme with rotary heat exchangers and an adiabatic cooling section, or without it. Experiments are also being conducted with direct cooling using outside air, but these solutions can hardly be called innovative. Like classic systems, they assume air cooling of IT equipment, and the technological limit of efficiency for such a scheme has almost been reached.
Further reduction of PUE (the ratio of total energy consumption to IT equipment energy consumption) will come from increasingly popular liquid cooling schemes. Here, it’s worth mentioning the initiative launched by Microsoft. on the creation of modular underwater data centers, as well as the concept of Google's floating data centers. While the technological giants' ideas are still far from industrial realization, less fantastical liquid cooling systems are already in operation at various sites, from Top500 supercomputers to micro data centers.
In contact cooling, special heat exchangers are installed in the equipment, through which liquid circulates. Immersion cooling systems use a dielectric working medium (usually mineral oil) and can be made either as a common sealed container or as individual housings for computing modules. Boiling (two-phase) systems may seem similar to immersion systems at first glance. They also use dielectric liquids in contact with electronics, but there is a fundamental difference: the working medium starts to boil at temperatures around 34 °C (or slightly above). From physics, we know that this process occurs with energy absorption; the temperature stops rising, and with further heating, the liquid evaporates, i.e., a phase transition occurs. In the upper part of the sealed container, the vapor comes into contact with a radiator and condenses, while droplets return to the common reservoir. Liquid cooling systems allow for fantastic PUE values (around 1.03) but require significant modifications to computing equipment and cooperation among manufacturers. Today, they are considered the most innovative and promising.
Summary
A variety of innovative technological approaches have been devised for creating modern data centers. Manufacturers offer integrated hyper-converged solutions, software-defined networks are being built, and even data centers themselves are becoming software-defined. To enhance the efficiency of these facilities, not only innovative cooling systems are installed, but also hardware-software solutions in the DCIM class, which optimize the operation of engineering infrastructure based on data from numerous sensors. Some innovations do not meet the expectations placed on them. For example, modular container solutions have not been able to replace traditional concrete or prefabricated metal structure data centers, although they are actively used where rapid deployment of computing power is necessary. Meanwhile, traditional data centers are also becoming modular, but at a completely different level. Progress in the industry is moving very quickly, albeit without technological leaps – the innovations we mentioned first appeared on the market several years ago. The year 2019 will not be an exception in this regard and will not bring any significant breakthroughs. In the digital age, even the most fantastic invention quickly becomes a standard technical solution.
Source: habr.com
