Method and system for determining and implementing a viable containment design of a data center

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10114982-B2
Application number	US-201314401978-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 22, 2013
Priority date	May 18, 2012
Publication date	Oct 30, 2018
Grant date	Oct 30, 2018

Abstract

A method and system is provided for determining a viable containment design of a data center and systematic implementation of the determined containment design in the data center. Particularly, disclosed is a method and system for collecting data pertaining to the design and operational parameters of the data center; enabling various containment design options using CFD based methodology; and providing recommendations for a viable containment design and assisting systematic implementation of the recommendations of in the data center following an iterative procedure.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for determining a viable containment design of a data center and systematic implementation of the determined containment design in the data center using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based virtual simulation, the method comprises steps of:
collecting, by a processor, data pertaining to a plurality of design and operational parameters of the data center using a Design and Operational Parameters Collection Module;
performing, by the processor, CFD simulations for collected design and operational parameters' data for each individual containment design thereby determining a viable containment design of the data center by comparing CFD simulation results of various containment designs and providing a set of recommendations for the viable containment design implementation using a Containment Design Determination Module; and
implementing, by the processor, the set of recommendations of the determined containment design in the data center, systematically using a Containment Design Implementation Module, wherein recommendation of the determined viable containment design is systematically implemented in the data center comprising implemented steps of:
checking each of the recommendations for their practical implementation feasibility;
re-evaluating the containment design using the containment design determination module for getting refined recommendations if all the recommendations are not feasible for implementations;
building a CFD model using collected data pertaining to design and operational parameters of the data center;
comparing thermal and flow profiles generated by each parametric study thereby obtaining the operational parameters for each containment design and calculating uniformity index to check the variability of temperature inside the containment, wherein the uniformity index is the root mean square value of rack temperature; and
physically implementing the design recommendations, in the data center, in a phased manner where the recommendation is feasible, wherein perforated tile positions are implemented first followed by switching on required number of design Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRACs) as per the design recommendation followed by implementation of other design recommendations and the operational recommendations.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the design parameters of the data center are selected from the group comprising of layout, geometrical details, blanking panels inside racks, perforated tile positions and operational parameters of the data center are selected from the group comprising of CRAC set points, power details, thermal and flow values at some locations.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the set of recommendations comprises of design recommendations selected from the group comprising of perforated tile positions, CRAC positions, and containment panel locations and operational recommendation selected from the group comprising of possibility for increasing the set points, number of CRAC to be switched on.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the collected data pertaining to the design and operational parameters of the data center is selected from the group comprising of layout details of the data center facility with its actual dimensions and geometrical details of all equipments present in data center; rack properties including rack power and rack opening details such as front and back or front and top; CRAC properties such as its model number, capacity, geometrical details and flow capacity; and details of wiring diagrams, beam's position, and columns position in the data center.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein a viable containment design is determined by processor implemented steps of:
creating various containment designs with due consideration of design and operational constraints of the data center;
carrying out CFD simulation studies for each created containment design for obtaining thermal and flow profile of the data center;
carrying out parametric studies for various operational parameters of the data center; and
selecting containment design with most favorable operational parameters of the data center.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the CFD model is built to virtually calculate the thermal and flow profile of the data center with and without various containment designs.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the containment design includes locations and placement of containment panels, perforated tile configurations, rack load distribution, blanking panel's location and placement, CRAC positions and combinations thereof.

8. The method as claimed in claim 5 , further comprises of validating the CFD model thermal output and tuning of the CFD model with the temperature measured in the existing data center and air flow details.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the containment designs includes cold aisle containment geometry, hot aisle containment geometry or a combination of both.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the containment designs are created in the CFD model by applying containment panels.

11. The method as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the design and operational constraints are selected from the group comprising of difficulty of placement of panels and aesthetic look of the data center.

12. The method as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the containment reduces mixing of cold air with hot air before reaching the servers in the data center substantially for efficient cooling.

Assignees

• Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

Inventors

• Singh Umesh
• Singh Amarendra K
• Sivasubramaniam Anand

Classifications

• G06G7/62 Primary

  for electric systems or apparatus · CPC title

• G06Q10/06 Primary

  Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling · CPC title

• G06F9/455

  Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines · CPC title