Thermal containment systems are critical innovations in the data center world. The benefits of cold aisle containment are massive and many. Starting with energy efficiency, cold aisle thermal containment systems make HVAC systems seriously better at cooling servers at a lower energy output. Using less energy to produce the same cooling effects wouldn’t be enough, though. That’s why cold aisle containment systems also decrease the risk of server breakage by outputting more cooling effects per kilowatt hour than outdated technologies. This seems optimistic, but remember how much energy is still needed to power a data center. Data centers have a power density 100 times greater than a typical large commercial office building. In fact, one data center put out the equivalent power of nine Walmart sized shopping centers. So, even though technological advancements are improving efficiency, overall power consumption remains high.
The Future of Big Data
Many people don’t realize just how finite our data storage space is under the current technological paradigm. New storage and hosting technologies have certainly allowed us to fit more data into smaller physical spaces, but these spaces will become filled unless something changes. We only have so much metal on our planet. The metals used in creating hard drives and SSDs will run out eventually. Now, this won’t be for quite a long time, but big data is an ever-expanding industry. This all goes without mentioning the dire need to switch to renewable energies soon. There are some estimates that state we will run out of oil in the next 25 years. Finding new energy sources alongside optimizing current consumption efficiencies will undoubtedly take center stage as a topic of conversation among data center owners. There’s little doubt that new strategies are already underway to develop new technology that will power, store, and host data. The question is, when will we run out of room, and will we figure out renewable storage before we run out of space? Top minds are on the case. If engineers were able to develop something as efficient as cold aisle containment, there’s little doubt others will find a solution to the problem of finite storage.