In the modern business world, maintaining a connection to computer services at all times is critical to your success. Losing power in data centers can result in downtime, loss of business, added costs, and a world of stress for IT managers trying to figure out why and how to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the impact of data center power failures, how they affect the electrical infrastructure of data centers, their main causes, and how to prepare for and prevent data center power outages.

What Happens to a Data Center During a Power Outage?

When the power goes out in a data center, unplanned downtime occurs. This can leave you vulnerable to loss of business and customer data, hacking, and overheating of data center electrical infrastructure. It’s important to consider the impact on consumers and remote workers as well. The third Annual Outage Analysis conducted by the Uptime Institute notes that although improvements in technology and availability have been made, outages remain a persistent concern for major industries and customers. The report shows that the overall impact and costs (both direct and indirect) of outages continue to grow. The most significant outage from the past three years was estimated to cost around $100,000 for half of the respondents surveyed and $1 million for one-third of respondents. In the past, data centers were just for your IT infrastructure.

Most Common Sources of Power Failure in Data Centers

• UPS failure: uninterrupted power supply failure is perhaps the most common and problematic source of data center downtime. The UPS system is supposed to ensure uptime if the main power source goes offline; when it breaks, it’s like popping your car tire only to find that your spare has a hole, too.
• Human error: according to Uptime’s data center survey, respondents reported that 42% of data center outages in the last three years were caused by human error. Among these, 57% were attributed to data center staff execution or failure to follow standard procedure. 44% cited incorrect staff processes and procedures as the main causes.
• Cooling system failure: this refers to a malfunction or performance interruption in the cooling of data center servers. The number of outages due to cooling system failures has decreased, but the cost of such outages has increased significantly. Increasing data center capacity and heat generation has made cooling system failure a formidable threat.

How Do I Prevent & Prepare for Power Outages?

While power outages caused by environmental factors may be inevitable, there are steps IT managers should take to prepare for and prevent power outages

caused by USP failure, human error, and cooling system failures. Severe outages are less common but have devastating effects when they do occur. Vigilance and investment are vital. Without proper power backups in place, your system will lack the resilience needed to stay competitive. Resilience remains one of the top management priorities when delivering digital services.

• UPS failure: Ensure that the UPS isn’t treated as a secondary component or afterthought. Since it’s a secondary source of power, it’s often located out of sight toward the back of data center facilities. The UPS storage room must be treated like any other part of the data center and that includes maintaining optimal climate conditions. Operators must monitor the UPS and support power management infrastructure in real-time.
• Human error: given these percentages listed above, it’s clear that a stronger focus on management and proactive training will produce better performance in service delivery.
• Cooling system failure: it’s important to plan for higher cooling capacity or more effective means of cooling so that the heat load can be adequately handled. During a power failure, the reserve capacity of cooling systems can maintain the temperature of the data center until the power comes back on or the UPS kicks in. Employing innovations in cooling technology, like two-phase liquid immersion cooling solutions from TMGcore, prevents overheating and damage to equipment in the event of a power failure.

Why TMGcore?

When critical business models depend on complex data center electrical infrastructure, it’s wise to be proactive and ready for a sudden power outage rather than scrambling to do damage control. TMGcore liquid immersion cooling devices not only keep your data center running smoothly when the power goes out, but also use less electricity overall, reducing operational costs. The management software integrated into the OTTO devices allows IT managers to manage electricity and stay ahead of the curve when the power goes out. Ensure that your data center is resilient to power outages and continues to operate smoothly by deploying industry-leading liquid immersion cooling devices by TMGcore. Contact us or schedule a demo to get started!

Society is becoming increasingly aware that the world is running out of fresh water. In fact, the World Economic Forum predicts that “the gap between global water supply and demand is projected to reach 40% by 2030.” That is if significant changes aren’t made. One way that influential businesses like data centers can help is by reducing their water waste, and the innovative solution of immersion cooling can help them do just that. 

Immersion cooling is a method of cooling electronic components by submerging them in a dielectric fluid. Heat is transferred from the components to the fluid, effectively eliminating the need for other cooling methods. The result is environmental and economic benefits data centers should consider. 

In this article, we will discuss the issue of excessive water waste in data centers and how the implementation of immersion cooling technology can help to significantly reduce both their water use and waste. As you read, you will learn the relevance of this issue, how immersion cooling works, and how it is more advantageous than current cooling methods found in most data centers.   

Average Water Consumption and Waste In Data Centers 

Before we dive into immersion cooling technology, it’s important we discuss the overarching issue and why this alternative cooling method is a necessary step to solving it.  

Water is a natural resource that many people take for granted and assume will always be available, whether this is through cost-free methods, like their home plumbing system, or for purchase in stores. Unfortunately, research has shown that this resource will become scarcer as the world’s population grows, climate and environmental issues worsen, and the demand for companies like data centers increases.  

Research conducted in 2015 discovered that one 15MW data center consumed an estimated 130 million liters of water per year. This water is used directly for cooling and indirectly through the water requirements of non-renewable electricity generation.  

On a national scale, the combined water consumption of data centers is an estimated 1.7 billion liters per day. This might seem small compared to the 1218 billion liters of water consumed per day in the United States overall, but there is no denying the figure’s significance.  

It is also worth mentioning that less than a third of American data centers are not fully transparent in measuring and providing their water consumption figures, so the aforementioned statistic of 1.7 billion liters per day is likely smaller than the actual number.  

Current Cooling Methods Used in Data Centers 

Understanding these figures on data center water consumption comes with understanding what cooling methods most currently use for their electrical components. 

Air Cooling 

The most popular way to cool electrical equipment and components in data centers today is through air cooling, which utilizes large air conditioning units or fans to move chilled air around the equipment and cool them. A small 1 MW data center using this method of cooling uses an estimated 25.5 million liters of water per year.  

This method has many inefficiencies, starting with its extremely high electrical need to function properly. It is estimated that up to 40% of a data center’s monthly electricity consumption goes directly to cooling its components, which is a separate environmental issue entirely since the power plants that provide this energy source emits a significant amount of CO2 and H2O. Unfortunately, despite the high demands of this cooling method, it often fails at sufficiently cooling equipment, leading to overheating and potential damage.  

Adiabatic and Evaporative Cooling 

Additional cooling methods used by data centers are adiabatic and evaporative cooling. Adiabatic cooling involves reducing heat through a change in air pressure by volume expansion. Adiabatic processes enable free cooling methods which use natural phenomena to regulate temperatures. Evaporative cooling utilizes chillers with cooling towers to cool water before circulating it into data centers. While both cooling methods do not rely on fans or air conditioning units, they consume the maximum water in data centers. 

Water Cooling 

This is why many data centers opted for a popular alternative of pumping chilled water through cooling coils surrounding the data center racks. As you can imagine, this too requires a significant amount of water to function, but the benefit of this cooling method is that it revealed that utilizing water to remove heat is much more efficient than mechanical air conditioning. This set the groundwork for liquid immersion cooling.   

What Is Liquid Immersion Cooling and How Does it Reduce Water Waste? 

The idea of fully submerging hardware in a liquid was understandably met with skepticism, but immersion cooling not only proved that it can be done safely, but that it can also outperform other widely used cooling methods.  

Immersion cooling is more energy-efficient, faster, and reliable than air conditioning units or water coils, despite appearing to use more water than both combined. How? The answer lies in the cooling process itself.  

With liquid immersion cooling, all of the heat generated by the electrical components is transferred directly, not to water, but to an engineered fluid (a dielectric/non-conductive liquid such as 3M™ Fluorinert™ Electronic Liquids or 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluids), which can be recycled and reused. There is no need to continually pump in fresh water, as with water coils, nor is there any evaporation or condensation, as with air conditioning units. 

In fact, the only water that is actually consumed by liquid immersion cooling is what is lost to evaporation. This amounts to less than 1% of the total water used in traditional cooling methods, making it a much more sustainable option. The technology also requires significantly less energy to operate, effectively reducing the data center’s consumption in this regard as well.  

While immersion cooling in itself is highly beneficial, there are two implementation methods: single-phase immersion and two-phase immersion. Each has its unique design and advantages that can benefit any data center. 

Single-Phase Immersion Cooling  

Single-phase immersion cooling works by placing the data center’s hardware in an enclosure, chassis, or tank and then immersing it in dielectric synthetic hydrocarbon oils. Any heat emitted by the hardware is directly absorbed by the oil and then pumped and circulated throughout the space.  

To effectively remove the heat and keep the oil cool around the hardware, any hot oil is pumped out by a secondary air-to-liquid or liquid-to-liquid heat exchanger while cool oil is pumped into the space. 

Two-Phase Immersion Cooling  

Two-phase immersion cooling works very similarly to single-phase cooling immersion but takes the process a step further using a fluid that is carefully engineered to have a boiling point that is below the temperature of heat emitted by common components of data center hardware.  

This allows the fluid to reject heat by turning into a vapor gas that then comes into contact with a specially designed vapor-to-liquid heat exchanger located on the top of the tank. The inclusion of this exchanger eliminates the need for a secondary heat exchanger and pumping system. 

The overarching benefits of immersion cooling versus air cooling include: 

• Most energy efficient cooling method currently in existence 
• An estimate ten to twentyfold increase in heat rejection capacity  
• Reduced CAPEX 
• Soundless system 
• Requires less installation and operation space 
• Improved TCO 
• Waste heat can be reused 
• Dielectric fluids are cleaner and reduce maintenance needs and system complexity. 
• Quick installation and easy deployment 
• Reduces or eliminates the need for water (apart from heat rejection) 

Between the two cooling immersion methods, 2-phase is undoubtedly the superior choice and will likely become a key influence in the future of data centers. 

Final Thoughts 

Two-Phase Liquid Immersion Technology is gaining traction in today’s market as a means of combatting compounding data center concerns related to energy and resource consumption. Nowhere are such issues perhaps better revealed than in the current contentious debate about water usage requirements for data center facilities in draught-stricken western states. 

TMGcore, the Home of Immersion Computing 

 TMGcore is an award-winning provider of high-performance computation solutions and manufacturer. Deciding to replace outdated data center cooling methods with liquid immersion cooling can be a significant investment, but the overarching environmental and economic benefits outweigh the short-term inconveniences. If you’re interested in making this crucial shift in your business, TMGcore can help.