"Hypothetical" Datacenter Overheating

Tue Jan 16 13:57:48 UTC 2024

For gear climate controls and rate of change look at ASHRAE ratings on the equipment.  Most vendors publish the rating of equipment on their data sheets (sometimes they include the ASHRAE rating), and it gives the required operating conditions as well as acceptable rates of change.  Most well run data centres follow these recommendations; this “hypothetical” data centre normally does as well, but may have missed some maintenance tasks it appears.  I have equipment in the same building which hasn’t been effected in another providers suite.

The ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) has a committee - ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 that covers Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment.

2021 Data Center Cooling Resiliency Brief

https://tpc.ashrae.org/Documents?cmtKey=fd4a4ee6-96a3-4f61-8b85-43418dfa988d

2016 ASHRAE Data Center Power Equipment Thermal Guidelines and Best Practices

https://tpc.ashrae.org/Documents?cmtKey=fd4a4ee6-96a3-4f61-8b85-43418dfa988d

2020 Cold Weather Shipping Acclimation and Best Practices (included this one because it is fitting this time of year)

https://tpc.ashrae.org/FileDownload?idx=809784d5-911b-4e9a-a2da-ff3ab6ff9eea

BTW; it hit -50°C (-58°F) in Alberta last week and you aren’t hearing about the data centres in that province going offline.  The record low for Chicago was -27°F set in 1985; this building wasn’t a data centre at that time, and only became a data centre in 1999 so they would have known how cold it could get there when they did the initial system planning and should have accounted for this.

Rob

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Robert Mercier

CTO

Next Dimension Inc.

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-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+rmercier=nextdimensioninc.com at nanog.org> On Behalf Of Saku Ytti
Sent: January 16, 2024 2:09 AM
To: bzs at theworld.com
Cc: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: "Hypothetical" Datacenter Overheating

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024 at 08:51, <bzs at theworld.com<mailto:bzs at theworld.com>> wrote:

> A rule of thumb is a few degrees per hour change but YMMV, depends on

> the equipment. Sometimes manufacturer's specs include this.

Is this common sense, or do you have reference to this, like paper showing at what temperature change at what rate occurs what damage?

I regularly bring fine electronics, say iPhone, through significant temperature gradients, as do most people who have to live in places where inside and outside can be wildly different temperatures, with no particular observable effect. iPhone does go into 'thermometer' mode, when it overheats though.

Manufacturers, say Juniper and Cisco describe humidity, storage and operating temperatures, but do not define temperature change rate.

Does NEBS have an opinion on this, or is this just a common case of yours?

--

  ++ytti
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