China and HK run data centres at high temperature

Data centre professionals in China and Hong Kong run their data centres at a higher temperature despite a long-term belief that a cooler temperature means more efficient operation with less risk of equipment downtime, reveals a recent survey.

PDU developer and designer Enlogic’s survey, which quizzed attendees at the DatacenterDynamics Conferences (DCD) in Hong Kong in July and Shanghai in September, found that the majority of operators felt safe to run their data centres at up to 25°C.

In Hong Kong, 60% of those surveyed said they felt safe running a data centre at up to 25°C while 51% of those in Shanghai felt it was safe to operate at an even higher temperature - up to 30°C - in a data centre.

This is in stark contrast with the 2013 Uptime Institute Data Centre Industry Survey, where a tiny fraction - just 7% of those surveyed around the globe - operated at 23.8°C or higher.

The temperatures the survey respondents named would be at the high end of the most recent ASHRAE TC9.9 specification, generally recognised as the global standard for data centre environmental operating conditions. In the ASHRAE TC9.9 specification, the “allowable range” is between 15 and 32°C while the “recommended range” is 18 and 27°C.

“Data centre operators in the Greater China region could well lead the way towards establishing greener data centres with this awareness that a data centre can operate efficiently even at a higher temperature,” says Mike Jansma, co-founder and chief marketing officer, Enlogic, who was also recently appointed as consultant to the China Data Centre Committee.

“The data centre industry is booming in Asia, especially in Greater China, and power consumption will be enormous, so every little saving in energy use counts. Most of the data centres in Greater China are fairly new. As such, there is an opportunity to integrate more advanced devices that intelligently measure energy and power use. Such usage data will play a critical role to arm operators with the insights with which they can enhance energy efficiency while still ensuring reliability and availability in their data centres,” says Jansma.

More efficient power management not only cuts the production of waste heat, it also reduces downtime and power bills. Proper training can help staff to manage these systems effectively. However, respondents in the two surveys believed that redundancy and hot-swappable technology were more effective ways to reduce downtime in their data centres.

“While having redundancy and hot swappable technology are important, Enlogic believes that good training is just as important. Well-trained data centre staff members will be able to use data collected for more precise energy management and capacity planning that will contribute to improved uptime and energy use in the long term,” says Jansma.