We make data center
sustainability profitable
Revolutionizing
data center air cooling,
one rack at a time
Simply Better Cooling
For decades, the efficiency and effectiveness of the conventional data center air-cooling process has been undermined by two limiting factors:
- Internal fans overtaxed by heat
- Room-based cooling results in suboptimal intake temperatures, hot spots
As a result of legacy room-based cooling methods, the air as it reaches each piece of IT equipment has been warmed up to some extent by the mixing of hot air exhaust with the cold air output from CRAC units and other sources. Further, due to other well-known issues with this process, temperatures fluctuate greatly for any given server, and they can vary widely between different servers, even among those sitting in the same rack.
The ability of internal fans, built into each piece of IT equipment, to support heat removal is affected in part by the temperature of air as it enters server, as well as by the amount of heat being generated by the server at any point in time. Equipment performance, reliability and life expectancy are all affected by the ability of the fans to sufficiently cool the equipment on a consistent basis.
The combination of unreliable intake air temperatures and unpredictable increases in server heat levels can spell trouble for equipment owners. For years, the industry has been forced to live with this risk, along with its heavy costs, with no broadscale replacement technology visible on the horizon. Until now.
Harnessing the elusive heat removal potential of air-cooling
As many solution providers dismissed air-cooling’s ability to adequately address today’s higher server heat levels and shifted their focus to other technologies, ChilliRack determined that air-cooling has huge untapped potential worth pursuing. Following years of R&D effort, which has resulted in dozens of patent filings and awards, ChilliRack has introduced a powerful precision air-cooling solution that performs extremely well in addressing higher heat levels data centers are currently facing. Resulting improvements to cooling efficiency drive big cost savings, regardless of server density levels, providing a strong business case for implementing ChilliRack across the entire data center, completely replacing the wasteful room-based cooling method that data centers have relied upon so heavily over the years. A new day is dawning for sustainable data center cooling!
Simply Better Cooling
For decades, the efficiency and effectiveness of the conventional data center air-cooling process has been undermined by two limiting factors:
- Internal fans overtaxed by heat
- Room-based cooling results in suboptimal intake temperatures, hot spots
As a result of legacy room-based cooling methods, the air as it reaches each piece of IT equipment has been warmed up to some extent by the mixing of hot air exhaust with the cold air output from CRAC units and other sources. Further, due to other well-known issues with this process, temperatures fluctuate greatly for any given server, and they can vary widely between different servers, even among those sitting in the same rack.
The ability of internal fans, built into each piece of IT equipment, to support heat removal is affected in part by the temperature of air as it enters server, as well as by the amount of heat being generated by the server at any point in time. Equipment performance, reliability and life expectancy are all affected by the ability of the fans to sufficiently cool the equipment on a consistent basis.
The combination of unreliable intake air temperatures and unpredictable increases in server heat levels can spell trouble for equipment owners. For years, the industry has been forced to live with this risk, along with its heavy costs, with no broadscale replacement technology visible on the horizon. Until now.
Harnessing the elusive heat removal potential of air-cooling
As many solution providers dismissed air-cooling’s ability to adequately address today’s higher server heat levels and shifted their focus to other technologies, ChilliRack determined that air-cooling has huge untapped potential worth pursuing. Following years of R&D effort, which has resulted in dozens of patent filings and awards, ChilliRack has introduced a powerful precision air-cooling solution that performs extremely well in addressing higher heat levels data centers are currently facing. Resulting improvements to cooling efficiency drive big cost savings, regardless of server density levels, providing a strong business case for implementing ChilliRack across the entire data center, completely replacing the wasteful room-based cooling method that data centers have relied upon so heavily over the years. A new day is dawning for sustainable data center cooling!
Better Air-Cooling Starts with the Basics
At the core of ChilliRack technology is a relatively simple process that brings cold air directly into the rack, sourced either from the raised floor below or from an overhead AC plenum. Improved air flow is achieved with the help of a powerful intake fan, pushing cold air through all the servers in the rack, and an exhaust fan rapidly removing hot air, which is channeled to the return duct above.
Through this cooling method, ChilliRack quickly lowers internal temperatures of every server in the rack, and reliably maintains temperatures at much lower heat levels than today’s air-cooling technology can support. As a result, equipment performs optimally, risk of failure is greatly reduced and server life expectancy is extended.
Ready to address today’s growing heat removal needs
ChilliRack is capable of handling the cooling needs of today’s rack-based equipment. No modifications to IT equipment are needed, so equipment owners can easily make a full transition to ChilliRack when the time is right.
ChilliRack greatly improves cooling efficiency, providing cost savings while cutting power consumption, and reducing the amount of cooling equipment required throughout the data center. By adapting easily to current cooling equipment, costly and time-consuming infrastructure modifications are avoided, and transition to ChilliRack can occur swiftly.
Unlike many complicated and expensive cooling technologies, ChilliRack is extremely cost-effective, with big cost savings driving a quick ROI, making it easy to cost-justify moving all of a company’s equipment to ChilliRack – not just high density HPC servers.
Optimizing data center server capacity
Ineffective air-cooling is the primary factor preventing data centers from maximizing their total server capacity. With the amount of heat generated by today’s equipment often exceeding the cooling capabilities of internal fans, equipment owners are forced to leave a good bit of open rack space between servers as a heat buffer. This spacing can help prevent overheating, but it comes at a cost. Some estimates suggest that the average rack utilization in a typical data center is less than 50% of the rack’s total potential server capacity, driven largely by excessive heat levels.
With ChilliRack, cooling needs are extremely well addressed, in most cases allowing equipment to occupy every RU in the rack. Simulations by Black & Veatch, verified through extensive testing, have demonstrated that ChilliRack users can “pack the rack” from top to bottom, with confidence that every server will be cooled better than ever before possible in today’s racks, which rely upon the internal server fans (along with server spacing) to perform the cooling task. The added boost provided by ChilliRack’s intake fan, combined with the swift removal of hot air by the exhaust fan provide the cooling reliability needed to make full rack utilization possible.
For data centers currently utilizing less than 50% of each rack’s equipment capacity, transitioning to ChilliRack could potentially double the amount of equipment that can be supported throughout the data center. This represents a huge opportunity to increase the number of customers served within a given facility, which results in additional revenues, cost savings and operating efficiencies.
Better Air-Cooling Starts with the Basics
At the core of ChilliRack technology is a relatively simple process that brings cold air directly into the rack, sourced either from the raised floor below or from an overhead AC plenum. Improved air flow is achieved with the help of a powerful intake fan, pushing cold air through all the servers in the rack, and an exhaust fan rapidly removing hot air, which is channeled to the return duct above.
Through this cooling method, ChilliRack quickly lowers internal temperatures of every server in the rack, and reliably maintains temperatures at much lower heat levels than today’s air-cooling technology can support. As a result, equipment performs optimally, risk of failure is greatly reduced and server life expectancy is extended.
Ready to address today’s growing heat removal needs
ChilliRack is capable of handling the cooling needs of today’s rack-based equipment. No modifications to IT equipment are needed, so equipment owners can easily make a full transition to ChilliRack when the time is right.
ChilliRack greatly improves cooling efficiency, providing cost savings while cutting power consumption, and reducing the amount of cooling equipment required throughout the data center. By adapting easily to current cooling equipment, costly and time-consuming infrastructure modifications are avoided, and transition to ChilliRack can occur swiftly.
Unlike many complicated and expensive cooling technologies, ChilliRack is extremely cost-effective, with big cost savings driving a quick ROI, making it easy to cost-justify moving all of a company’s equipment to ChilliRack – not just high density HPC servers.
Optimizing data center server capacity
Ineffective air-cooling is the primary factor preventing data centers from maximizing their total server capacity. With the amount of heat generated by today’s equipment often exceeding the cooling capabilities of internal fans, equipment owners are forced to leave a good bit of open rack space between servers as a heat buffer. This spacing can help prevent overheating, but it comes at a cost. Some estimates suggest that the average rack utilization in a typical data center is less than 50% of the rack’s total potential server capacity, driven largely by excessive heat levels.
With ChilliRack, cooling needs are extremely well addressed, in most cases allowing equipment to occupy every RU in the rack. Simulations by Black & Veatch, verified through extensive testing, have demonstrated that ChilliRack users can “pack the rack” from top to bottom, with confidence that every server will be cooled better than ever before possible in today’s racks, which rely upon the internal server fans (along with server spacing) to perform the cooling task. The added boost provided by ChilliRack’s intake fan, combined with the swift removal of hot air by the exhaust fan provide the cooling reliability needed to make full rack utilization possible.
For data centers currently utilizing less than 50% of each rack’s equipment capacity, transitioning to ChilliRack could potentially double the amount of equipment that can be supported throughout the data center. This represents a huge opportunity to increase the number of customers served within a given facility, which results in additional revenues, cost savings and operating efficiencies.
ChilliRack® Use Cases
Data center owners with limited rack space
ChilliRack provides the ability for equipment owners to confidently “pack-the-rack” with servers, knowing that their equipment will be cooled effectively.
Examples of data center owners that would value ChilliRack’s greatly-expanded equipment capacity:
- Enterprise data center owners with limited space, looking to avoid issues related to colocation and cloud-based alternatives
- Successful Colocation and Cloud service providers experiencing strong growth in demand that could exceed the capacity of existing facilities or new data centers under construction
- Service providers focused on managing the bottom line, wishing to reign in the investments in new construction by making more efficient use of existing data centers
For companies facing growth-related constraints, ChilliRack’s ability to more effectively cool today’s rack-based IT equipment represents an attractive strategic option. Transitioning to take advantage of ChilliRack efficiencies can be pursued quickly, and on a large scale. Many customers will be able to shrink the overall footprint of their existing equipment by 50% or more. Equipment that is taking up two cabinets today may all fit into one ChilliRack, freeing up large amounts of data center space to address internal growth pressures or expanding customer demand.
Big cost savings make ChilliRack a smart investment, providing a strong ROI that makes a full transition of all IT equipment; not just high density HPC servers. Easily adapted to today’s cooling equipment, infrastructure costs are nominal, making a quick implementation possible.
Colocation providers seeking competitive advantage and higher profit margins
Across the highly-competitive colocation market, companies are seeking new ways to increase sales, revenue and profit margins. ChilliRack provides a number of strategic possibilities that providers can use to great advantage.
One powerful strategic move available to colocation providers would be to broaden the scope of their overall value proposition, expanding their service offering to include providing ChilliRack cabinets, as an alternative to today’s “bring-your-own-rack” model. Here are some ways that operators gain from making such a change for new customer acquisition:
- By purchasing ChilliRack cabinets and offering them for use by new customers, providers can more easily claim full credit for the benefits that ChilliRack provides, such as superior cooling, a green and more efficient cooling method, greatly increased server capacity in each rack, and any related economic benefits.
- Given the new forms of value customers will now receive, providers can justify charging more for a package made possible by ChilliRack. By eliminating the need for customers to buy the ChilliRack themselves, operators are simplifying the decision, thus boosting close rates and more quickly capturing all the ancillary benefits that accrue to the provider.
- With each new customer occupying a smaller footprint than they would in today’s environment, the data center can handle a much larger number of customers. Some providers could see data centers able to support twice as many customers as before, which means any new data center will take twice as long to reach full occupancy. This could provide much-needed spending relief to companies now forced to invest heavily in data center construction.
Capitalizing on the benefits of ChilliRack to help drive new customer sales makes a lot of sense, but conversion of current customers to ChilliRack may represent an even bigger strategic opportunity in the near term. And if these are pursued in tandem, colocation providers more quickly capture the full value that ChilliRack provides, from a more powerful competitive stance to greater sustainability and stronger profits.
Each data center now occupied by customers represents a sizable opportunity to recapture usable floor space needed to support new customer growth. By incentivizing customer transitions with the benefits ChilliRack provides, customers can move quickly.
- Since ChilliRack can easily accommodate today’s equipment, a swift wholesale transition is possible.
- In many cases the transition process will be most efficiently accomplished with the creation of data halls dedicated to ChilliRack, where rack utilization can be maximized for each customer. With a few simple modifications, ChilliRack-ready space can be easily created in any existing structure, and be expanded as needed.
- Any part of the data center that is fully-converted to ChilliRack will no longer need the room-based cold air provisioning required today, and there is a good chance that some existing CRAC units will no longer be needed, freeing up floorspace for additional racks. All racks will be connected directly to the cold air source(s), as well as to the hot air return duct creating a fully-closed system.
- Full conversion to ChilliRack provides greater design agility by eliminating the need for hot/cold aisle configurations or hot/cold air containment solutions. Without these constraints, the floor layout becomes a lot more flexible, likely expanding total rack capacity as a result.
- As customer equipment is more densely packed into ChilliRack cabinets, space is freed up for new customers to occupy.
- By opening up additional capacity in all cities in which a colocation provider currently operates, it may be possible to shift the focus of future construction projects to new markets.
Given the strong business case justifying a move to ChilliRack, it’s easy to overlook the resulting sustainability benefits. The growing value that businesses place on ensuring their service providers are aggressively pursuing sustainability means that ChilliRack becomes a strong competitive differentiator for colocation providers, helping to attract and retain customers.
ChilliRack® Use Cases
Data center owners with limited rack space
ChilliRack provides the ability for equipment owners to confidently “pack-the-rack” with servers, knowing that their equipment will be cooled effectively.
Examples of data center owners that would value ChilliRack’s greatly-expanded equipment capacity:
- Enterprise data center owners with limited space, looking to avoid issues related to colocation and cloud-based alternatives
- Successful Colocation and Cloud service providers experiencing strong growth in demand that could exceed the capacity of existing facilities or new data centers under construction
- Service providers focused on managing the bottom line, wishing to reign in the investments in new construction by making more efficient use of existing data centers
For companies facing growth-related constraints, ChilliRack’s ability to more effectively cool today’s rack-based IT equipment represents an attractive strategic option. Transitioning to take advantage of ChilliRack efficiencies can be pursued quickly, and on a large scale. Many customers will be able to shrink the overall footprint of their existing equipment by 50% or more. Equipment that is taking up two cabinets today may all fit into one ChilliRack, freeing up large amounts of data center space to address internal growth pressures or expanding customer demand.
Big cost savings make ChilliRack a smart investment, providing a strong ROI that makes a full transition of all IT equipment; not just high density HPC servers. Easily adapted to today’s cooling equipment, infrastructure costs are nominal, making a quick implementation possible.
Colocation providers seeking competitive advantage and higher profit margins
Across the highly-competitive colocation market, companies are seeking new ways to increase sales, revenue and profit margins. ChilliRack provides a number of strategic possibilities that providers can use to great advantage.
One powerful strategic move available to colocation providers would be to broaden the scope of their overall value proposition, expanding their service offering to include providing ChilliRack cabinets, as an alternative to today’s “bring-your-own-rack” model. Here are some ways that operators gain from making such a change for new customer acquisition:
- By purchasing ChilliRack cabinets and offering them for use by new customers, providers can more easily claim full credit for the benefits that ChilliRack provides, such as superior cooling, a green and more efficient cooling method, greatly increased server capacity in each rack, and any related economic benefits.
- Given the new forms of value customers will now receive, providers can justify charging more for a package made possible by ChilliRack. By eliminating the need for customers to buy the ChilliRack themselves, operators are simplifying the decision, thus boosting close rates and more quickly capturing all the ancillary benefits that accrue to the provider.
- With each new customer occupying a smaller footprint than they would in today’s environment, the data center can handle a much larger number of customers. Some providers could see data centers able to support twice as many customers as before, which means any new data center will take twice as long to reach full occupancy. This could provide much-needed spending relief to companies now forced to invest heavily in data center construction.
Capitalizing on the benefits of ChilliRack to help drive new customer sales makes a lot of sense, but conversion of current customers to ChilliRack may represent an even bigger strategic opportunity in the near term. And if these are pursued in tandem, colocation providers more quickly capture the full value that ChilliRack provides, from a more powerful competitive stance to greater sustainability and stronger profits.
Each data center now occupied by customers represents a sizable opportunity to recapture usable floor space needed to support new customer growth. By incentivizing customer transitions with the benefits ChilliRack provides, customers can move quickly.
- Since ChilliRack can easily accommodate today’s equipment, a swift wholesale transition is possible.
- In many cases the transition process will be most efficiently accomplished with the creation of data halls dedicated to ChilliRack, where rack utilization can be maximized for each customer. With a few simple modifications, ChilliRack-ready space can be easily created in any existing structure, and be expanded as needed.
- Any part of the data center that is fully-converted to ChilliRack will no longer need the room-based cold air provisioning required today, and there is a good chance that some existing CRAC units will no longer be needed, freeing up floorspace for additional racks. All racks will be connected directly to the cold air source(s), as well as to the hot air return duct creating a fully-closed system.
- Full conversion to ChilliRack provides greater design agility by eliminating the need for hot/cold aisle configurations or hot/cold air containment solutions. Without these constraints, the floor layout becomes a lot more flexible, likely expanding total rack capacity as a result.
- As customer equipment is more densely packed into ChilliRack cabinets, space is freed up for new customers to occupy.
- By opening up additional capacity in all cities in which a colocation provider currently operates, it may be possible to shift the focus of future construction projects to new markets.
Given the strong business case justifying a move to ChilliRack, it’s easy to overlook the resulting sustainability benefits. The growing value that businesses place on ensuring their service providers are aggressively pursuing sustainability means that ChilliRack becomes a strong competitive differentiator for colocation providers, helping to attract and retain customers.
ChilliRack® Benefits
ChilliRack® Benefits
A solid foundation for addressing cooling challenges of today and tomorrow
What you see described here represents the foundation of the ChilliRack technology platform, which we will build upon with the goal of fully optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of precision air-cooling of IT equipment to address an evolving range of needs and use cases. Starting with a solution that is easily integrated into today’s data centers utilizing existing infrastructure, ChilliRack will expand the utility of our technology – to edge facilities and wherever compute, storage and networking capabilities are needed in the future.
A solid foundation for addressing cooling challenges of today and tomorrow
What you see described here represents the foundation of the ChilliRack technology platform, which we will build upon with the goal of fully optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of precision air-cooling of IT equipment to address an evolving range of needs and use cases. Starting with a solution that is easily integrated into today’s data centers utilizing existing infrastructure, ChilliRack will expand the utility of our technology – to edge facilities and wherever compute, storage and networking capabilities are needed in the future.