Your commercial data center is the lifeblood of your business. If your data center is overheating, you need to take action to prevent a loss of data and a loss of productivity. A data center cooling system protects your servers from overheating. But as with any commercial air conditioning system, things can and will break down.
Overheating can cause massive IT failures. Your business is especially in danger if your server room / data center was built in the 1980s, before today’s huge internet usage was a factor. If that’s the case, your data center is probably not equipped to deal with the excessive heat generated by this day and age’s data usage. If things get too hot, your equipment will shut down to protect itself.
And if you run a very large data center, you may have thousands of corporate clients depending on you for tasks including cryptocurrency miners, human genome sequencers, disaster recovery, and data storage services. That’s why it’s important to have local commercial air conditioning experts on speed dial.
If your data center is overheating, contact Ambient Edge. When we come out, we will quickly diagnose the issue, and get you up and running again.
Below, we list some steps you can take if your data center is overheating, as well as measures you can put in place to prevent problems.
You Need a Highly Efficient Commercial Air Conditioning System
In the battle to prevent hot spots in your data center, a top of the line commercial HVAC system is critical. Without a quality commercial HVAC system in place, it will be next to impossible to keep your equipment at the optimal temperature.
But just having an HVAC system is not enough to prevent your equipment from overheating. The ventilation system must be configured to deliver the cold air to strategic locations within your data center to ensure the intake vents on the individual servers have easy access to the cold air they need.
According to guidelines from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the ideal temperature for a data center or server room is 64.4 to 80.6℉. Relative humidity should be around 50%, with a low of 20% and 80%. But many older data centers keep everything much cooler, to be on the safe side.
Set Up Automatic Temperature Monitoring
If you don’t already have automatic temperature monitoring, installing a monitoring system can help prevent hot spots and data center overheating in the future. It’s critical that you know what’s going on with the various banks of servers at all times. Sensors for these systems will monitor both temperature and humidity. They should be installed near the tops of server racks, since heat naturally rises. Additionally, you should make sure to install them near the equipment intake vents, as this is where hot spots first become a problem. With a monitoring system in place, the next step is to assign people who can take immediate action should an overheating alert occur and probably you will need to make heating repair.
Perform Manual Checkups
While an automatic temperature monitoring system is the most efficient and precise method for detecting data center overheating, you should also perform manual temperature checks. This is a manual backup system to ensure the automatic monitoring system is performing as it should. You’ll want to do manual temperature measurements at key areas around the center on a regular basis. This will help ensure that the automatic system sensors are registering the correct temperature. If you have a smaller data center or server room and an automatic temperature monitoring system is cost prohibitive, you’ll need to take more frequent manual measurements.
Schedule Regular HVAC Maintenance
A data center places high demands on your commercial HVAC system. Since the AC system must run nearly constantly to keep the servers cool, your AC units need to be in peak operating condition at all times. You should have a commercial HVAC company provide regular maintenance and heating repair as needed. This can include:
- Cleaning or changing filters
- Checking refrigerant levels
- Adding refrigerant as needed
- Replacing worn out parts before they fail
- Lubricating equipment as needed
- And more
You can’t afford any problems with your commercial air conditioning system. Any loss in efficiency or breakdown can have serious financial consequences for you and the clients you serve.
Ask us about our preventative maintenance plans.
Need Help with a Data Center Overheating?
If your operation works 24/7, you need your data center operating at peak performance around the clock. No matter what time of the day you call, we will answer. When you have an emergency, our call team will connect you with our on-call technician or take a message for non-emergency calls.
We perform commercial HVAC maintenance, repair, and installation. Our 100% satisfaction guarantee covers all our parts and services so, while we are careful and clean while on the premises, you’re protected if something breaks or goes wrong. If your data center is overheating, don’t delay addressing the issue with a permanent fix. Call Ambient Edge today to set up a service appointment.