Thursday 28 February 2013

First, servers were DEEP-FRIED... now, boffins bring you WET ones


We've seen quite a few innovative engineers who have tried to bring down data centre cooling costs, including this mad crowd who dunked theirs in a deep fryer... Now boffins at Leeds University and British start-up Icetope have invented a super cooling liquid that could create a new generation of "wet servers". They say it could cut the cooling costs of the world's server farms by 97 per cent.

The heat generated by servers is a significant cost for data centres: Facebook evaded it by siting a European data centre in an icebound mountain in Finland, but the invention from Leeds could allow for a much simpler way to reduce cooling bills. Leeds University's Dr Jon Summers demoed a working prototype of the wet server this week.

Dunking servers in new magic liquid 3M Novec reduces the cooling system's energy use by 80 - 97 per cent, compared to cooling systems that use air. Air cooling is inefficient because it is a poor conductor, produces diffuse general heat and requires energy-chomping high powered fans, said the boffins.

3M Novec is also a thousand times better at conducting heat than water, and one low-powered fan in a chamber of 3M Novec is adequate to chill a server array.

Crucially the liquid doesn't conduct electricity, so is safe on electronics. In the vid below, Dr Summers dunks a standard mobe and an iPhone in a beaker of 3M Novec to show how the liquid leaves gadgetry unaffected.

The method paves the way for servers in inhospitable places - including submarines. Dr Nikil Kapur, also from the University of Leeds School of Mechanical Engineering, explains:

The fact that this system is completely enclosed raises a host of possibilities. It does not interact with its environment in the way an air-cooled server does, so you could put it in an extreme environment like the desert. It is also completely silent. You could have it on a submarine or in a classroom.

In the prototype cooling system unveiled this week, a Novec cooling circuit transfers the heat to a primary water circuit, which can pass it onto a secondary set of water pipes. Because of the high cooling efficiency of the system, the output water can reach temperatures of up to 50°C (122°F), hot enough to be used for radiators.

Peter Hopton, Iceotope’s chief technology officer, one of the boffins who cooked up the concept, said that the implications of the cooling system go way beyond server farms:

More than five years of research, innovation and collaboration have gone into Iceotope’s technology. The basic principle of the design has many applications and, while a few years away, there is no reason why every home shouldn't make better use of the surplus heat from consumer electronics, imagine having your PC or TV plumbed into the central heating system.

Leeds University Tests Iceotope’s Liquid-Cooled Servers


Iceotope has announced its first customer, having installed a next generation liquid-cooled server at the University of Leeds, which uses a combination of liquid coolant and hot water to cool the server – and provide hot water for the University’s heating system.
The British firm has been working on its system for some years and plans to take part in a major shift as it believes data centres will have to move to liquid cooling to reduce their energy consumption in the near future. .
iceotope

University Tests

TechweekEurope first reported on Iceotope back in November 2009. Its system essentially cools hot-running servers by immersing them in liquid coolant solution (3M’s Novec), sealed into a specially-made blade. Heat is removed from that unit by running hot water past it in a circulating system within the system rack.
Iceotope claims to be able to reduce the energy consumption costs for server cooling by between 80 percent and 97 percent. the hot water the system produces is also useful for other purposes including central heating.
After two years of testing prototypes, Iceotope has installed the first liquid-cooled production system at the University of Leeds, where it is being tested.
The company designed and built the new server, working in partnership with a team of researchers led by Dr Jon Summers from the University of Leeds’ School of Mechanical Engineering.
Iceotope says that because all the electronics are encapsulated in a sealed unit containing 3M’s dielectric coolant Novec as the inert coolant, it reduces the power consumed at a server level by eliminating the need for any fans. While the idea of immersing electronics in any liquid seems strange, Novec can be in direct contact with electronics because it does not conduct electricity.
Novec rapidly convects the heat away from the electronics, and then transfers it to a sealed low pressure gravity fed subsystem. The heat can then be passively cooled or repurposed to centrally heat or provide hot water to other buildings, facilities or office spaces.
Liquid cooling is gaining traction in the industry. Last September for example, Intel gave its blessing to the concept, after it approved the idea of a rival system from Green Revolution Cooling (GRC), after a one year trial.
Google also uses liquid cooling in its data centres, and Sun founder Scott McNeally has backed another immersion advocate LiquidCool (formerly Hardcore Computing).

Efficient Cooling

“The liquid we are using is extraordinary stuff,” said Dr Summers of Leeds University. “You could throw your mobile phone in a tub of it and the phone would work perfectly. But the important thing for the future of computing and the internet is that it is more than 1,000 times more effective at carrying heat than air.”
“The cooling of servers is traditionally done using fans and air conditioning units, but air is a great insulator. We use it in double glazing. Why would you use it to cool a server?” said Dr Summers.
Iceotope says that the new system needs no noisy fans, nor does the new server need an elaborate pump to move the coolant over its components. Instead, a simple low energy pump is located at the bottom of the cabinet, and it pumps a secondary coolant (water) to the top where it cascades down throughout all 48 modules due to gravity.
“The secondary coolant terminates at heat exchangers within the cabinet for transfer of heat to a third and final coolant, on an external loop, taking the heat away for external cooling or reuse,” said the company. This thid coolant can be drawn from “grey water” sources such as rainwater or river water.
Iceotope says that due to the high cooling efficiency of its system, the output water can reach temperatures of up to 50°C, which can be used for heating and other uses. The Iceotope system uses just 80 watts of power to harvest the heat from up to 20 kilowatts of ICT use. It also says that the new server also does away with the need for ancillary data centre facilities such as computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, humidity control systems and air purification.

The Future?

In 2009, IBM predicted that all servers would be water cooled by 2019, as liquids remove heat more efficiently, and in a form that can be used for other purposes. IBM’s supercomputers, such as that at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich,  provide  warmth for nearby buildings.
“The fact that this system is completely enclosed raises a host of possibilities,” explained Dr Nikil Kapur, also from the University of Leeds’ School of Mechanical Engineering. “It does not interact with its environment in the way an air-cooled server does, so you could put it in an extreme environment like the desert. It is also completely silent. You could have it on a submarine or in a classroom.”
“Information technology has been the poster child of the new economy but its environmental impact has frequently been unaddressed,” said Neil Bennett, CEO of Iceotope. “Given the increasing scarcity of resources such as energy and clean water, Iceotope delivers computing with a conscience. We are proud to have the University of Leeds as partners on this disruptive and exciting journey.”
“More than five years of research, innovation and collaboration have gone into Iceotope’s technology,” said Peter Hopton, Iceotope’s CTO and originator of the Iceotope concept. “The basic principle of the design has many applications and, while a few years away, there is no reason why every home shouldn’t make better use of the surplus heat from consumer electronics, imagine having your PC or TV plumbed into the central heating system.”



Wednesday 27 February 2013

Iceotope plumbs in immersively cooled servers for first customer


IDG News Service - Iceotope's immersively cooled server racks are now in production, and the company has named its first customer. The University of Leeds, in the north of England, has been using an Iceotope server since December to run computational fluid dynamics models -- and to warm the radiators in one of its laboratories.
The company showed off prototypes of its unusual liquid-cooled system at the Cebit trade show in Germany last March, but took another few months to figure out how to mass-produce the aluminum server modules, which are filled with Novec, an inert coolant liquid from 3M.
The Novec carries heat from the server motherboard to the module's surface by natural convection, without the need for noisy, inefficient fans. Water is pumped to the top of the rack, from where it trickles down over the modules to a heat exchanger. A secondary water circuit then carries the heat away, either to a rooftop cooling system or, at the University of Leeds, to regular domestic radiators.
The many fans in a typical server rack might be turning as much as 6kW of electricity into acoustic and thermal energy as they push air around, according to senior lecturer Jon Summers. Iceotope's racks are cooled by two 40W water pumps, and just one could do the job if the other failed, according to company CTO Peter Hopton.
While many data centers are struggling because their servers are running too hot, Summers said that if anything the university's Iceotope server is too cool.
"We're looking at a water temperature of 50 to 55 C from the back of the system going into the radiators, which are normally expecting 70 C," he said. That means each radiator's heat output is around 1.7kW, well below the 2.5kW they would deliver if connected to a central heating system.
A PhD student sponsored by Iceotope is using the server to model how it could be made to run hotter, boosting cooling efficiency -- and warming the laboratory more effectively through the winter, said Summers.
"We are trying to understand what flow rates we need to operate it at and the external circuit that best matches the performance of the system. We've been running some heavy computational loads to generate that heat," he said.
The server is probably worked harder than those in many data centers, he said, because it operates at about 95 percent utilization, running calculations in batch mode for student projects, while utilization in commercial environments is much lower.
The Leeds server has a mix of modules containing both AMD and Intel processors, reflecting the academic interest in experimentation. It has a total of 240 cores and 360GB of RAM.
Processor modules containing two Intel six-core Romley E5-2620 processors, 64Gbytes of RAM and SSD storage start at APS3,195 (US$4,835). A rack can hold 48 modules, along with dual heat exchangers and dual power supplies for redundancy.
With the servers bathed in fluid and sealed in aluminum boxes, the upgrade options are limited to swapping a box out of the cabinet and putting a new one in.

"Refilling is possible, but nobody has requested it yet," said Iceotope CEO Neil Bennett. "We are encouraging customers to put a lot of memory in from day one. It's not something a customer can just put a new DIMM in."

University of Leeds trials submerged servers


iceotope systemTHE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS is running fully immersed servers, claiming 80 percent to 97 percent power consumption savings over traditional air cooling.
The university worked with Iceotope to fully submerge servers using non-conductive liquid. Now the university says it has deployed the servers after two years of testing.

Using 3M's Novec liquid, which is pumped through the servers, there are no fans in the system. The servers also use water in a heat exchanger, while a third coolant loop that uses so-called 'grey water' - rainwater or river water - is used to draw heat away from the servers.

The University claims the liquid cooling system uses 80 Watts of power to cool clusters that use 20KW and claims the system does away with the need for traditional datacentre support services such as air conditioning or air purification units.

Jon Summers from the University of Leeds School of Mechanical Engineering department said, "The liquid we are using is extraordinary stuff. You could throw your mobile phone in a tub of it and the phone's electronics would work perfectly. But the important thing for the future of computing and the internet is that it is more than 1,000 times more effective at carrying heat than air."

Nikil Kapur, another researcher from the university's mechanical engineering department, said the closed cooling system means that servers can be deployed in extreme environments, while at the other end of the spectrum its silent operation allows it to be used in classrooms.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2250966/university-of-leeds-trials-submerged-servers

Iceotope plumbs in immersively cooled servers for first customer



IDG News Service (Paris Bureau) — Iceotope's immersively cooled server racks are now in production, and the company has named its first customer. The University of Leeds, in the north of England, has been using an Iceotope server since December to run computational fluid dynamics models -- and to warm the radiators in one of its laboratories.
The company showed off prototypes of its unusual liquid-cooled system at the Cebit trade show in Germany last March, but took another few months to figure out how to mass-produce the aluminum server modules, which are filled with Novec, an inert coolant liquid from 3M.
The Novec carries heat from the server motherboard to the module's surface by natural convection, without the need for noisy, inefficient fans. Water is pumped to the top of the rack, from where it trickles down over the modules to a heat exchanger. A secondary water circuit then carries the heat away, either to a rooftop cooling system or, at the University of Leeds, to regular domestic radiators.
The many fans in a typical server rack might be turning as much as 6kW of electricity into acoustic and thermal energy as they push air around, according to senior lecturer Jon Summers. Iceotope's racks are cooled by two 40W water pumps, and just one could do the job if the other failed, according to company CTO Peter Hopton.
While many data centers are struggling because their servers are running too hot, Summers said that if anything the university's Iceotope server is too cool.
"We're looking at a water temperature of 50 to 55 C from the back of the system going into the radiators, which are normally expecting 70 C," he said. That means each radiator's heat output is around 1.7kW, well below the 2.5kW they would deliver if connected to a central heating system.
A PhD student sponsored by Iceotope is using the server to model how it could be made to run hotter, boosting cooling efficiency -- and warming the laboratory more effectively through the winter, said Summers.
"We are trying to understand what flow rates we need to operate it at and the external circuit that best matches the performance of the system. We've been running some heavy computational loads to generate that heat," he said.
The server is probably worked harder than those in many data centers, he said, because it operates at about 95 percent utilization, running calculations in batch mode for student projects, while utilization in commercial environments is much lower.
The Leeds server has a mix of modules containing both AMD and Intel processors, reflecting the academic interest in experimentation. It has a total of 240 cores and 360GB of RAM.
Processor modules containing two Intel six-core Romley E5-2620 processors, 64Gbytes of RAM and SSD storage start at APS3,195 (US$4,835). A rack can hold 48 modules, along with dual heat exchangers and dual power supplies for redundancy.
With the servers bathed in fluid and sealed in aluminum boxes, the upgrade options are limited to swapping a box out of the cabinet and putting a new one in.
"Refilling is possible, but nobody has requested it yet," said Iceotope CEO Neil Bennett. "We are encouraging customers to put a lot of memory in from day one. It's not something a customer can just put a new DIMM in."
http://www.cio.com/article/729487/Iceotope_plumbs_in_immersively_cooled_servers_for_first_customer

University of Leeds tests immersed servers


Researchers at the University of Leeds are trialling liquid-cooled servers that could cut power consumption used in cooling systems in datacentres by up to 97 per cent.

Most servers in datacentres use air to cool them, but server modules used by the university are totally immersed in liquid. This liquid replaces noisy, power-hungry fans.

The system, designed and built by Iceotope in Rotherham, uses a non-flammable liquid coolant, called 3M Novec, and can be in direct contact with electronics because it does not conduct electricity.

Iceotope designed and built the system working with team of researchers led by Dr Jon Summers from the University of Leeds’ School of Mechanical Engineering. The first production system has now been installed at the University after two years of testing prototypes.

So far the university claimed that the new system uses just 80 watts of power to harvest the heat from up to 20 kilowatts of ICT use. The server also does away with the need for ancillary data centre facilities such as computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, humidity control systems and air purification.

Dr Summers said “The liquid we are using is extraordinary stuff. You could throw your mobile phone in a tub of it and the phone would work perfectly. But the important thing for the future of computing and the internet is that it is more than 1,000 times more effective at carrying heat than air."

“The cooling of servers is traditionally done using fans and air conditioning units, but air is a great insulator. We use it in double glazing. Why would you use it to cool a server?” he added.

Dr Nikil Kapur, also from the University of Leeds’ School of Mechanical Engineering, said the fact that the system is completely enclosed raises many possibilities. "It does not interact with its environment in the way an air-cooled server does, so you could put it in an extreme environment like the desert. It is also completely silent. You could have it on a submarine or in a classroom.”

Peter Hopton, Iceotope’s Chief Technology Officer and originator of the Iceotope concept said the basic principle of the design has many applications.

"While a few years away, there is no reason why every home shouldn't make better use of the surplus heat from consumer electronics, imagine having your PC or TV plumbed into the central heating system."



Read more: http://www.itpro.co.uk/data-centers/19313/university-leeds-tests-immersed-servers#ixzz2Ma5T3g5t

Wet computer server could cut internet waste


A revolutionary liquid-cooled computer server that could slash the carbon footprint of the internet is being tested at the University of Leeds. While most computers use air to cool their electronics, all of the components in the new server are completely immersed in liquid. The power-hungry fans of traditional computing are replaced by a silent next-generation liquid cooling process that relies on the natural convection of heat.

But the significance of the new Iceotope server lies less in the novelty of its design than in the bite it could take out of the huge electricity demands of the internet servers that form the fabric of our online lives.
Its designers calculate that the server cuts energy consumption for cooling by between 80 percent and 97 percent. 

While the information industry enjoys an image of hyper efficiency and environmental friendliness, all internet use relies on remote servers, which are usually housed in large data centres that must be constantly cooled to remain operational. The reality is that the mobile apps, networked devices and 24-hour internet access on which we have come to rely are very energy hungry.

A 2011 report by Datacenter Dynamics estimated that the world's data centres currently use 31 gigawatts of power, the equivalent of about half of the UK's total peak electricity demand. A 2008 report by McKinsey and Company projected that data centre carbon emissions will quadruple by 2020 and a year-long investigation by the New York Times, published in September, criticized the industry for its energy waste.

UK company Iceotope designed and built its new server working with team of researchers led by Dr Jon Summers from the University of Leeds' School of Mechanical Engineering. The first production system has now been installed at the University after two years of testing prototypes.


Dr Summers, whose team used computational fluid dynamics to model how the coolant flows through the new server's components, said:

"The liquid we are using is extraordinary stuff. You could throw your mobile phone in a tub of it and the phone would work perfectly. But the important thing for the future of computing and the internet is that it is more than 1,000 times more effective at carrying heat than air.
"The cooling of servers is traditionally done using fans and air conditioning units, but air is a great insulator. We use it in double glazing. Why would you use it to cool a server?" he added.

The non-flammable liquid coolant, called 3M Novec, can be in direct contact with electronics because it does not conduct electricity.

There is no equivalent of the noisy fans required by traditional computers and the server does not require an elaborate pump to move the coolant over its components.

Instead, a simple low energy pump, located at the bottom of the cabinet, pumps a secondary coolant (water) to the top where it cascades down throughout all 48 modules due to gravity.
The secondary coolant terminates at heat exchangers within the cabinet for transfer of heat to a third and final coolant, on an external loop, taking the heat away for external cooling or reuse.
The third coolant can be drawn from "grey water" sources such as rainwater or river water, further reducing the environmental impact of the server. Because of the high cooling efficiency of the system, the output water can reach temperatures of up to 50 degrees Centigrade, which can be used for heating and other uses.

The Iceotope system uses just 80 watts of power to harvest the heat from up to 20 kilowatts of ICT use. The server also does away with the need for ancillary data centre facilities such as computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, humidity control systems and air purification.
Dr Nikil Kapur, also from the University of Leeds' School of Mechanical Engineering, said:

"The fact that this system is completely enclosed raises a host of possibilities. It does not interact with its environment in the way an air-cooled server does, so you could put it in an extreme environment like the desert. It is also completely silent. You could have it on a submarine or in a classroom."

Neil Bennett, CEO of Iceotope, said:

"Information technology has been the poster child of the new economy but its environmental impact has frequently been unaddressed. Given the increasing scarcity of resources such as energy and clean water, Iceotope delivers computing with a conscience. We are proud to have the University of Leeds as partners on this disruptive and exciting journey."

Peter Hopton, Iceotope's Chief Technology Officer and originator of the Iceotope concept, said:

"More than five years of research, innovation and collaboration have gone into Iceotope's technology. The basic principle of the design has many applications and, while a few years away, there is no reason why every home shouldn't make better use of the surplus heat from consumer electronics, imagine having your PC or TV plumbed into the central heating system."

More information: Key facts about data centres:

—The world's data centres use 31 gigawatts of power, more than seven times the capacity of UK's largest coal-fired power station, Drax in North Yorkshire.

— Data centre carbon emissions are projected to quadruple between 2008 and 2020.
— The UK has 7.6 million square metres of data centre floor space.

— 1 in 3 of the world's population use data centres. The number is growing at around 15 per cent annually

Provided by University of Leeds

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-server-internet.html#jCp

Friday 1 February 2013

Iceotope Finalists for Network Computing Awards 2013 Datacentre Product of the Year Award.


Iceotope have been chosen as finalists in the Network Computing Awards 2013 for Datacentre Product of the Year.

The final decision is down to popular vote, so here's another chance to show your support for Iceotope. Simply follow the link below and cast your vote - it only takes a minute!

www.networkcomputingawards.co.uk/


Thanks everyone!