Low-power chipmaker Transmeta Corp. was successful a few years ago selling its processors to specialty blade-server manufacturer RLX Technologies Inc., but RLX has also begun to sell servers with Intel Pentium 4 processors to accommodate its customers' demand for more power.

	Lower-power processors would run cooler, says Pennington of the NCSA, which plans to add blade servers to its data center.

Heat-dissipation problems can be fixed, even in data centers that use tightly packed blade chassis, if IT and facilities managers do a better job of laying out equipment in their data centers, Uptime Institute's Brill says. Along those lines, HP last week introduced a data-center analysis service that IT and facilities managers can use to determine the impact of server heat on equipment. HP's Utility Data Center strategy includes cooling analysis that uses Flovent computational fluid dynamics software from Flomerics to create a three-dimensional model of heat distribution in a data center. HP then recommends a data-center layout, optimizing existing air-conditioning equipment rather than adding costly units each time new servers are brought in.

Companies have been shrinking the size of the data center in order to save money on space, says Chandrakant Patel, HP Labs' principal scientist. But when IT equipment is compacted into a smaller space, new heat dynamics are created and must be addressed to ensure the longevity of a company's investments, Patel says, noting that, "Air conditioning in today's data centers isn't designed to cool denser racks."

Gary Bronson, IT enterprise operations manager at Washington Group International, a construction and engineering company with $4 billion in annual revenue, is considering adding a data-center engineer or scientist to his IT staff to do some of the same analysis that HP is offering with its new service. It's very important for companies to configure their equipment properly to avoid finger pointing with vendors in the event of a problem, he told attendees at last week's DataCenter Dynamics conference in New York. "You have to be smart about what you implement."

The cost of HP's cooling-analysis service depends on various factors, including the size and complexity of the installation. Pricing begins at $20,000, but that could be offset by energy savings. HP researchers believe cooling analysis could reduce expenses at a 30,000-square-foot data center by 25%, about $1 million a year.

HP's current service focuses on static smart cooling, which leaves air-conditioning systems in place in favor of moving IT equipment. Within two years, HP plans to deliver dynamic smart cooling that would let data centers move components of a cooling system to hot spots. A robot resembling the Mars Pathfinder would roam a customer's data center, testing for hot spots.

HP is also experimenting with an ink-jet-assisted precision spray that would cool data-center equipment if the temperature rose to a certain level. This is at least five years away, Patel says.

Not to be outdone, IBM says it has developed prototype cooling systems to accommodate processors that will run hotter than today's systems. One technology would attach a liquid-cooled heat sink--a device that keeps a processor from overheating by absorbing and dissipating its heat--to processors. Heat-sink technology isn't new, but it hasn't been used much with Intel processors, says Jeff Benck, director of product marketing for IBM's Intel-based xSeries servers.

IBM is also studying how water-cooled systems could keep IT equipment from overheating. One device is a water-cooled cabinet that would use water to regulate rack heat.

Heat dissipation is an issue for every data center, says Uptime Institute's Brill. Companies can alleviate these problems in the short term by ensuring that air conditioning is going to the intake vents of equipment, rather than being used to cool the heated exhaust that these systems create. Density planning is also key, he says. "We're not seeing a lot of density planning in data centers, but it's important because density is happening fast."

Photo of Rollins by Sacha Lecca

Photo of Pennington by Bob Stefko