A world leading provider of software and IT systems to the retail sector contacted Migration Solutions to complete a comprehensive audit of their primary facility in Coventry. The client was aware that the facility had some issues and Migration Solutions was asked to investigate and report on them. The facility, like many, had evolved over time from a small computer room into a 60 rack data centre and the inherent issues had evolved with it.
A detailed audit of the facility and its supporting infrastructure was performed including a review of the servers installed and their locations. In addition to a standard in-depth audit, a thermal assessment was carried out to identify overheating servers, hot spots, and areas where airflow management was most required. The IT team were keen to have external consultants highlight the known problems and recommend appropriate solutions so they could put together a business case to present to the board in order to obtain funding for improvements.
The largest issue that the client had was with their cooling provision. As with many facilities that have evolved from server cupboards, the standard office comfort control cooling was not meeting the cooling load, was providing chilled air to the rear of racks and was constantly leaking and breaking down. The thermal assessment highlighted the impacts of not having appropriate cooling with significantly elevated inlet temperatures causing a number of fan failures and as a result, servers overheating and shutting down.
The audit report included detailed rack layout diagrams along with information to enable the client to better understand their installed equipment and how this can be operated more efficiently. Recommendations based on the results of both audits investigated alternatives to traditional cooling methods. The aim was to provide a solution with significantly lower capital expenditure whilst ensuring that operational costs were significantly lower than a conventional cooling installation.