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Server Room: 1 Design Considerations

A server room is a dedicated space for housing computer servers and networking equipment. Key considerations in server room design include location, air conditioning, fire protection, future-proofing, and redundancy. The location should avoid exterior walls and windows. Air conditioning systems tightly control temperature and humidity to ensure server reliability. Fire suppression focuses on early detection and containment without disruption. Designs need scalability to accommodate growing power and cooling demands. Redundancy removes single points of failure for critical systems.

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254 views3 pages

Server Room: 1 Design Considerations

A server room is a dedicated space for housing computer servers and networking equipment. Key considerations in server room design include location, air conditioning, fire protection, future-proofing, and redundancy. The location should avoid exterior walls and windows. Air conditioning systems tightly control temperature and humidity to ensure server reliability. Fire suppression focuses on early detection and containment without disruption. Designs need scalability to accommodate growing power and cooling demands. Redundancy removes single points of failure for critical systems.

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Sơn Phạm
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Server room

1.1 Location
Computer or server room location is the rst consideration, before even considering the layout of the rooms
contents. Most designers agree that, where possible, the
computer room should not be built where one of its walls
is an exterior wall of the building. Exterior walls can often be quite damp and can contain water pipes that could
burst and drench the equipment. Certainly avoid exterior windows that will not only be a security risk, but also
be susceptible to breakages. Also, try to avoid both the
top oors and basements that may be prone to ooding
or leaks in the case of roofs. If a centralised computer
room is not feasible, server closets on each oor may be
an option. This is where computer, network and phone
equipment are housed in closets and each closet is stacked
above each other on the oor that they service.
In addition to the hazards of exterior walls, designers need
to evaluate any potential sources of interference in proximity to the computer room. Check if there are radio
transmitters in close proximity and also consider electrical interference from power plants or lift rooms, etc.
Other physical design considerations range from room
size, door sizes and access ramps (to get equipment in and
out) to cable organization, physical security and maintenance access.

A young man congures a Wikimedia server in a Kennisnet server


room.

A server room is a room, usually air-conditioned, devoted to the continuous operation of computer servers.
An entire building or station devoted to this purpose is a
data center.
The computers in a server rooms are usually headless 1.2 Air conditioning
systems that can be operated remotely via KVM switch
or remote administration software, such as Secure Shell Computer equipment generates heat, and is sensitive to
(ssh), VNC, and remote desktop.[1][2][3][4][5]
heat, humidity, and dust, but also the need for very high
Climate is one of the factors that aects the energy con- resilience and failover requirements. Maintaining a stasumption and environmental impact of a server room. ble temperature and humidity within tight tolerances is
In areas where climate favors cooling and an abundance critical to IT system reliability.
of renewable electricity, the environmental eects will
be more moderate. Thus countries with favorable conditions, such as: Canada,[6] Finland,[7] Sweden,[8] and
Switzerland,[9] are trying to attract more companies to
site their server rooms there.

In most server rooms close control air conditioning" systems, also known as PAC (precision air conditioning) systems, are installed. These systems control temperature,
humidity and particle ltration within tight tolerances 24
hours a day and can be remotely monitored. They can
have built-in automatic alerts when conditions within the
server room move outside dened tolerances.

Design considerations

Air conditioning designs for most computer or server


rooms will vary depending on various design considerBuilding a server or computer room requires detailed at- ations, but they are generally one of two types: up-ow
tention to six main design considerations: [10]
and down-ow congurations.
1

2
1.2.1

3
Up-ow air conditioning

This type of air conditioning draws air into the front of


the air handler unit (AHU), cools the air over the heat exchanger, then distributes the cooled air out through the
top or through duct work. This air conditioning conguration is well suited to retro-tted computer rooms when
raised oors are either of inadequate depth or do not exist
at all.

REFERENCES

inch rack can accommodate anywhere from 42 to hundreds of servers.

1.5 Redundancy

If the computer systems in a server room are mission


critical, removing single points of failure and commonmode failures may be of high importance.[11] The level
of desired redundancy is determined by factors such as
whether the organisation can tolerate interruption whilst
failover systems are activated, or must they be seamless
1.2.2 Down-ow air conditioning
without any business impacts. Other than computer hardTypically, this type of air conditioning unit draws the air ware redundancy, the main consideration here is the prointo the top of the air handling unit, cools the air over visioning of failover power supplies and cooling.
the heat exchanger, then distributes the air out of the bottom into the oor void. This conditioned air is then discharged into the server room via strategically placed oor 2 See also
grilles and onwards to equipment racks. These systems
are well suited to new oce buildings where the design
Equipment room
can encompass raised oors suitable for ducting to com Facility management
puter racks.
Server farm

1.3

Fire protection

The re protection systems main goal should be to detect


and alert of re in the early stages, then bring re under
control without disrupting the ow of business and without threatening the personnel in the facility. Server room
re suppression technology has been around for as long as
there have been server rooms. Traditionally, most computer rooms used Halon gas, but this has been shown to be
environmentally unfriendly (ozone depleting) and unsafe
for humans. Modern computer rooms use combinations
of inert gases such as Nitrogen, Argon and CO2. Other
solutions include clean chemical agents such as FM200
and also hypoxic air solutions that keep oxygen levels
down.

1.4

Future-proong

Mini-Data Center Data Vault Layout

3 References
[1] Learnthat - server room Denition
[2] Free Online Encyclopedia - server room
[3] ISP.webopedia.com - lights out server room
[4] TechRepublic - What not to do in a server room
[5] CNET Networks - Photos: Server room cabling overhaul
[6] Canada Called Prime Real Estate for Massive Data Computers - Globe & Mail Retrieved June 29, 2011.
[7] Finland - First Choice for Siting Your Cloud Computing
Data Center. Accessed 4 August 2010.
[8] Stockholm sets sights on data center customers. Accessed

The demands of server rooms are constantly changing as


4 August 2010.
organizations evolve and grow and as technology changes.
An essential part of computer room design is future [9] Swiss Carbon-Neutral Servers Hit the Cloud. Accessed 4
August 2010.
proong so that new requirements can be accommodated
with minimal eort. As computing requirements grow, [10] Air Intelligence Air Conditioning Computer Room Deso will a server rooms power and cooling requirements.
sign Considerations
As a rough guide, for every additional 100 kW of equipment installed, a further 30 kW of energy is required to [11] Black Swan in the Server Room
cool it. As a result, air conditioning designs will need to
have scalability designed in from the outset.
The choice of racks in a server room is usually the prime
factor when determining space. Many organisations use
telco racks or enclosed cabinets to make the most of the
space they have. Today, with servers that are one-rackunit (1U) high and new blade servers, a single 19- or 23-

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