Increase Performance While Conserving Energy

The trend toward more powerful, denser computing infrastructure also requires innovations in cooling to keep up with it.

Liquid cooling for latest generation Dell EMC PowerEdge servers

The latest generation of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers offers CPUs with higher performance than ever before, providing the capability to run artificial intelligence (AI), high performance computing (HPC) and other advanced enterprise workloads. However, the upward trend toward more powerful, denser computing infrastructure also requires continuing innovations in cooling to keep up with it.

CoolIT Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) technology.Along with the latest processors, many of the latest generation of more powerful Dell EMC PowerEdge servers also come with the option for CoolIT Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) technology. DLC transfers heat away from the processors by placing a metal plate in direct contact with the surface of the processor. Liquid flows through sealed micro-channels in the plate to capture heat from the processor and then flows on to a heat exchanger, which dissipates the heat.

The heat load is removed from the data center via a warm water loop, potentially bypassing the chiller system. Because water can hold 4X more heat capacity than air, these new liquid-cooled servers can support higher-bin, faster processors with lower power requirements and greater reliability. By replacing or supplementing conventional air cooling with higher-efficiency liquid cooling, the overall operational efficiency of the data center is improved.

For example, DLC can help:

  • Enable higher compute density. DLC cooling enables support of up to 25% more cores per rack for the C6520 system and 2X the core count for the C6525 system compared to air cooling alone.¹
  • Support system configurations that may not be possible with air cooling alone, such as high thermal design power (TDP) CPUs, dense storage and/or add-in cards.
  • Reduce energy costs by up to 45% relative to cooled air.²
  • Pay for itself with a 1.3-year break-even and 3X return on investment (ROI) within four years.³

With the latest launch, we’re expanding our portfolio of servers with factory-installed DLC to include our dense Dell EMC PowerEdge C6520 and C6525 Servers, as well as the following Dell EMC PowerEdge rack-mount servers:  R6525, R7525, R650, R750, R750XA.

It’s a cool POD, literally and figuratively

Cooling pod. Where a node-level DLC solution captures between 50%-60% of a server’s internal heat (depending on the configuration), the rack-level POD is designed for total heat capture. The POD solution contains front and back containment for racks of DLC servers, plus an In-row cooler integrated between the IT racks to capture any remaining heat for even greater cooling efficiency.

Air-cooled cars?

If you’re still thinking you don’t need liquid cooling in your datacenter, consider this: Liquid cooling in automobiles started in 1897 with the invention of radiators. Would you consider buying an air-cooled car? In the heat of summer, dip in the pool and check out Dell Technologies Direct Liquid Cooling Support for New PowerEdge Servers. The Dell Technologies HPC & AI Innovation Lab has dueling air and liquid-cooled racks. Discover more on our interactive virtual tour.

1 Dell Technologies internal engineering testing.

2 Based on Dell EMC internal analysis, March 2021, comparing a hypothetical air-cooled data center with a cooling PUE of 0.62 to a hybrid data center with a cooling PUE of 0.34. A PUE of 0.21 was assigned to all overhead not attributed to cooling. Operating costs and other factors will cause results to vary. RS Means industry standards cost basis was used to measure typical cooling infrastructure costs and determine projected savings.

3 Based on Dell EMC internal analysis, March 2021, comparing a hypothetical air-cooled data center to a hybrid data center. Assuming 1,244 nodes, the air-cooled data center uses 1825kW whereas the hybrid uses 1544kW. Individual operating costs and other factors will vary the results. RS Means industry standards cost basis was used to measure typical cooling infrastructure costs and determine projected savings. Based on Dell EMC internal analysis, calculating the capital cost of DLC minus the amount of CRAH, pumps, chiller and tower to equal the net cost of DLC and examining the operational costs of a hypothetical air-cooled data center and a hybrid data center to determine ROI. Assumes a high-wattage CPU. Schneider Electric developed an analytical model that ascribes operating costs to the various types of facility infrastructure equipment. Electricity costs and other factors will vary the results. RS Means industry standards cost basis was used to estimate cooling infrastructure costs and determine projected savings.

About the Author: Janet Morss

Janet Morss previously worked at Dell Technologies, specializing in  machine learning (ML) and high performance computing (HPC) product marketing.