Data Center Guidance

TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia

The ASHRAE TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia evolved in 2024 from the longstanding ASHRAE Datacom Series, a series of print books that provides information on data center related subjects. This comprehensive online encyclopedia collects essential knowledge about important datacom topics such as facility design considerations, ITE design considerations, environmental guidelines, cooling technologies, and energy efficiency in a central hub, providing on-demand access to frequently updated datacom-related content anytime, on any device, anywhere. Access to the encyclopedia is granted via payment of an annual subscription fee.

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White Papers and Technical Bulletins

Cold Weather Shipping Acclimation and Best Practices

This white paper addresses the prevention of damage to sensitive IT equipment caused by cold weather shipping conditions, providing additional guidance for shipping IT equipment that is not covered in the latest edition of Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments. In addition to outlining cold weather shipping practices and packaging for various modes of transportation, this white paper covers acclimation time guidelines for both large equipment such as racks, cabinets, and frames and smaller field-replaceable components such as disk drives, PCIe cards, and memory modules.

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Data Center Power Equipment Thermal Guidelines and Best Practices

This white paper discusses how changes to the data center thermal environment may affect power distribution equipment. In some cases, power equipment can be subjected to higher temperatures than the IT equipment. Higher temperatures can impact equipment reliability. Exposure to warmer temperatures, coupled with the fact that usable life cycle of power equipment is typically longer than IT equipment, increases the importance of this topic. This paper also provides an overview of data center power distribution and describes the typical power equipment used for both IT loads and non-IT loads (i.e. lighting and cooling). Included in this list of equipment is switchgear, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), static transfer switches, switchboards, transformers, power distribution units (PDU), remote power panels (RPP), panelboards, rack PDU, line cords, facility receptacles and IT cable trays.

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Data Center Storage Equipment – Thermal Guidelines, Issues, and Best Practices

This white paper defines thermal guidelines best practices for storage equipment for both storage hardware designers and storage equipment users. These guidelines were written by a team of storage subject matter experts from many different companies and the recommendations are industry-wide best practices which are agnostic of the point of view of any one company and are based off of a comprehensive review of environmental specifications and air flow management best practices that was conducted across disk, flash, and tape based storage equipment.

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Edge Computing: Considerations for Reliable Operation

This technical bulletin highlights the environmental and reliability challenges of edge data centers and the design and maintenance challenges of these data centers that are surrounded by semi-controlled or even uncontrolled external environments.

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Emergence and Expansion of Liquid Cooling in Mainstream Data Centers

This white paper explains why liquid cooling should be considered, rather than the details around what liquid cooling is or how to deploy it. Future increases in IT equipment power will require additional equipment energy use and cooling resources will result in fewer servers per rack. During the 1990s and early 2000s, IT equipment power draw increased regularly. At the time, nameplate power was the typical planning metric, so a refresh may not have been that problematic. This paper will address three time frames: the early time frame where power increases were acceptable, the period following where power remained relatively constant, and the current time frame where power draw is again on the rise.

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Hard Disk Drive Performance Degradation Susceptibility to Acoustics

This white paper educates the data center community about the risks to HDD throughput performance from acoustics created by AMDs running at high speeds to adequately cool components within the racks.

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Water-Cooled Servers Common Designs, Components, and Processes

This white paper outlines some of the common processes, parts, and materials for focus in use for future water-cooled designs. Some parts in a water-cooled IT system will be specific to the product design, such as cold plates, manifolds, arrangement of piping, pumps, valves, and so on, but others such as quick connects, hoses, hose connections, materials, and water chemistry fall more into the category of common parts that can be used by all current and potential manufacturers of water-cooled IT equipment. This white paper is an attempt to provide and make available those items that could be classified as common. This white paper also corrects misunderstandings in the latest edition of Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers and provides guidance for avoiding common mistakes based upon the book's content.

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ASHRAE Datacom Series

The Datacom Series provides a comprehensive treatment of data center cooling and related subjects, authored by ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9, Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment.