EXPERT OPINION

Markus Gerber , Sr . Business Development Manager at nVent , discusses a simple framework for choosing the right cooling systems and how organisations can identify the ideal time to implement liquid cooling . He outlines some challenges data centres face in the cooling process and how they can be managed .

Liquid cooling is not a new concept , it has been in existence for some time . The underlying principle of cooling involves transferring heat from one medium to another or using a medium to dissipate the heat . In this case , we utilise liquid to remove the heat and the primary motivation behind adopting liquid cooling is to bring the cooling closer to the heat source .

In the past years , we have seen a progression in cooling methods : from cooling entire rooms to cooling rack walls , then moving to single racks and now the focus is shifting to cooling IT equipment itself . The main aim is to achieve higher efficiency , better manage thermal concerns and promote sustainability within current installations .

How is immersion cooling different from direct liquid cooling and what are the differences in deployment ?

The main difference is in the immersion cooling approach which captures almost all the heat with liquid . As a company , we focus on a single-phase cooling media .

This means the liquid we employ maintains a consistent state . Other solutions with dual-phase liquids exist but we break them down into two specific approaches called ‘ direct-to-chip cold plate cooling ’ and ‘ precision chassis-based immersion cooling ’. For both approaches , we utilise the same infrastructure components used in the direct-to-chip .

42 www . intelligentdatacentres . com