Cold aisle containment encloses aisles of data center racks where cold supply air is delivered to cool IT equipment, allowing the rest of the data center to become a hot-air return plenum where the temperatures can be increased. Physical barriers such as solid metal panels, plastic curtains, glass, or plexiglass are used to allow for proper airflow through cold aisles.
The advantages of cold aisle containment include:
- Easy to implement without the need for additional fabrication to contain and return exhaust air such as a drop ceiling or air plenum.
- Typically less expensive to install than hot aisle containment.
- Easier to retrofit in existing data centers.
- Doesn’t need to be on a raised floor, though it often is.
Cold Aisle Containment and DCIM Software
Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software is used to easily monitor all containment temperature sensors. DCIM software enables data center managers to collect real-time data and automatically plot it against ASHRAE or customized thermal envelopes to see hot spots at a glance, know when to increase or decrease temperature set points, and simplify the management of airside economization.
The benefits of cold aisle containment in conjunction with DCIM software are:
- Ensure proper inlet temperatures in server racks in all your containment aisle
- Save energy and drive green initiatives by safely increasing temperature set points
- Increase uptime through real-time alerting against preset thresholds
- Easily trend active power, energy costs, and environmental conditions
- Monitor other facility equipment, including CRACs, building meters, PDUs, and UPSs
- Generate energy cost reports for customer bill-back
Want to see how Sunbird’s world-leading DCIM software makes it easy for you to optimize cold aisle containment and increase efficiency? Get your free test drive now!
