Verification of improved air conditioning operation measures in server rooms

Improving efficiency of air conditioning in data centers involves improvement of server room operations as well as improvement of efficiency of air conditioning units. This is because server room operations significantly affect the airflow inside the room, and improper airflow results in hotspots. Hotspots result in excessive cooling, which in turn leads to increased energy needed for air conditioning. Here we will report on the experiments we conducted inside an actual server room to verify air conditioning power efficiency in order to understand the effect of measures to improve server room operations. The measures we evaluated were the separation of IT equipment intake and exhaust airflow (aisle capping^[1]) and the correction of return airflow (ceiling chamber opening adjustment). Our measurements showed that aisle capping could result in 6% while correction of ceiling chamber opening in 4.1% increase in energy efficiency.