Cooling Equipment for Telecom Switch/Server Room

Whatever figure you pick will be wrong. If you under estimate the price will be OK but but the facility will over heat (and you'll be off the Christmas card list). If you over estimate, the price will be to high and the system will be expensive to run. If it was sever racks I'd suggest a figure of 6KW per rack as a starting point.

You could call APC (www.apc.com), it will take the rest of the week to get to the right person or maybe Rittal in Enfeild (0208 8054700). These are both specialists in this field.

Theo

ASHRAE has published guidelines for data center air conditioning perhaps you could discuss with your client along with APC engineers and decide be careful you need to check from server/switching equipment manufacturer what is heat dissipated during operation don't go by name plate data furnished by Dumb marketing jokers of these equipment manufacturers as they furnish peak heat dissipated by the equipment and demand oversized CRAC units to keep their side safe this is my practical experience.

crm

In principle it's easy to calculate the size of air conditioning unit you need for your Server Room, just add together all the sources of heat and install an air conditioning unit that can remove that much. In practice it's rather more complicated.

Fire regulations often require that Server Rooms have levels of insulation far above that of a normal office. Providing sufficient cooling is essential to ensure reliable running of servers, routers, switches and other key equipment. Failure of the air conditioning can have serious consequences for the equipment itself and for your company. Early warning of problems and spare capacity in the cooling system are both highly desirable

The amount of heat generated is known as the heat gain or heat load. Heat is measured in either British Thermal Units (BTU) or Kilowatts (KW). 1KW is equivalent to 3412BTUs.

The heat load depends on a number of factors, by taking into account those that apply in your circumstances and adding them together a reasonably accurate measure of the total heat can be calculated.

Factors include:

• The floor area of the room
• The size and position of windows, and whether they have blinds or shades
• The number of room occupants (if any)
• The heat generated by equipment
• The heat generated by lighting

Give us a call for the answer; We need a list of the kit and approximate room dimensions;

Ask for Keith at ANEC Limited 01332 230902.

Chris J Knight

ANEC Ltd