As I sat at my desk a few days ago, I noticed that the annoying hum of server fans had taken on a brand new sound. Instead of the low humming noise I am used to, the sound was more of a high-pitched scream. Those of you in the IT field know this is NOT a good thing!
I gathered the nerve to approach the server room door. After hearing the door screech open, I was greeted with 80 degree air and an even louder noise. Sure enough, we had another cooling problem! After a couple of phone calls, I had a heat & air technician en-route. The technician wasted no time telling me that the problem was due to our landscaping crew using a blower in the area. It seems the blowers kick up a ton of debris, which gets sucked into the air conditioning units, rendering them useless.
The part of this that surprised me is that we have redundant cooling in our server room. A few years back, we had similar issues, and we went without air conditioning in our server room for weeks on end. Vowing to never let this happen again, we worked with the local heat & air company to design a redundant system with multiple compressors and air handlers. The thought process behind this was that if one unit were to go out, the other unit could still maintain the correct temperature while allowing us to get the broken unit serviced. We had tested this, and it worked!!!
But not this time. It seems our company has grown so much over the past few years that we have had to add numerous new servers, switches, and etc. No one ever took into account the extra heat being generated by these units. Now, if one air conditioning unit goes out, the room temperature slowly climbs and climbs and climbs. In a nutshell, having a cool server room now REQUIRES that both A/C units be functioning properly. Another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
I can’t wait to talk to the purseholders of the company and tell them about our little underestimation. I can only imagine the numbers that will be thrown our way when we get quotes on larger A/C units.
A word to the wise: cooling is an often overlooked, yet critical area in the IT field. Small changes in the makeup of your server room over a period of time can add up to big problems down the road. It’s best to build a little extra capacity in on the front end of an installation, but you also have to factor in anticipated growth rates. With a little extra planning and attention to detail, you can rest assured that your servers won’t endure the additional wear and tear of extreme temperatures. As an added benefit, you won’t have to go back to the big dogs asking for more money.
Wish me luck!!!
Popularity: 4% [?]
Write a Comment