The effect of data center temperature on energy efficiency

Server’s capabilities are increasing at or beyond the rate of performance improvement gains predicted by Moore’s Law for the silicon itself. The challenge for the Information Technology (IT) owner is housing and operating all of this computational power in the Data Center. With more computational power in each unit volume, the industry is experiencing a significant increase in power density and hence a greater cooling challenge. The ability to now tackle computational tasks that were previously unattainable has driven energy costs to new levels. Methods to reduce the energy used in cooling these machines are being studied throughout the industry. One of the areas being considered is increasing the Data Center server ambient inlet temperature. ASHRAE [1] suggests