Wednesday 20 November 2013

Iceotope liquid-cooled supercomputer operates at 95 percent utilisation with near-perfect PUE

Iceotope has announced the installation of its next generation liquid-cooled servers inside the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Poland, a 3,200sq ft colocation facility offering shared HPC (High Performance Computing) services to scientists, universities and researchers from around the world.

DCS Europe, 20 November

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Monday 18 November 2013

Iceotope hits low PUE in overclocked IT environment

Puts liquid cooling to the test in Poland as part of the PRACE project.

Datacenter Dynamics, Penny Jones, 18 November 2013

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Iceotope Performs ‘environmental Overclocking’ for €400m Prace Project

Iceotope liquid-cooled supercomputer operates at 95 percent utilisation with near-perfect PUE

18 November, 2013 – Sheffield-based Iceotope, the environmental cooling specialist, has today announced the installation of its next generation liquid-cooled servers inside the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Poland, a 3,200sq ft colocation facility offering shared HPC (High Performance Computing) services to scientists, universities and researchers from around the world. The installation is part of the European PRACE Research Project (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) and was completed in June 2013. Since then, the Iceotope and PRACE teams have been running the systems on ‘turbo mode’ and collecting data on its environmental performance, the results of which have the potential to substantially reduce the environmental footprint of supercomputing operations.

The PRACE research project is an international not-for-profit association set up to support high impact scientific discovery and engineering research, with a strong interest in reducing the environmental impact of computing systems. Iceotope is one of three winning participants in PRACE’s new liquid cooling research project, which involves testing and comparing a variety of different liquid cooled solutions – with the aim of exploring their environmental benefits compared to traditional air cooling. Iceotope was awarded the tender with PRACE ahead of a rival bid from IBM, and has since installed 46 of its environmentally-friendly and high performance blade modules alongside existing legacy air cooled servers. So far, the results for Iceotope have been impressive – with massive energy efficiency, operational, performance and utilisation benefits compared to traditional air cooled servers, and even other forms of liquid cooling.

Green supercomputers – Iceotope achieves a 1.03 PUE

With the ultimate objective of finding the most environmentally friendly computing systems, each system tested has been given a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) figure as part of its overall environmental rating. Iceotope’s 1.03 figure[1] is on a par with Facebook and Google’s industry leading data centre facilities and means that for every Kilowatt of energy that reaches the computer, 95% is available for computing with no losses for fans etc.

 Three months of ‘environmental overclocking’

“At the PSNC, we are able to overclock the machines and still use minimal power resources for cooling; no easy feat, I can assure you,” said Iceotope founder and CEO, Peter Hopton. “Typically, data centre facilities will run their servers at around 40% utilisation, meaning that 60% of potential compute capacity remains unused. At Poznan PSNC, however, the Iceotope system was set up to run at above 90% utilisation, running a highly demanding ‘Linux Stress’ software programme designed to assess every aspect of compute including memory, CPU, servers and applications.  The system has been running for periods of up to 3 months while undergoing testing of the system, the cooling and the high speed networking.

“Running at such a high utilisation rate, or overclocking as it commonly known, means that IT users can run their systems in ‘turbo mode’ and get higher performance rates. However, this is the complete opposite to how most environmentally friendly IT systems are run as doing so requires the electronics to operate at much higher temperatures.  To avoid damage to the equipment, cooling equipment capable of providing a constant temperature must be used and more often than not this is a power-hungry option. This high utilisation with low cooling cost makes the environmental figures we achieved all the more impressive.”

 Whilst most IT professionals will employ ‘underclocking’ techniques, with very low utilisation rates, in order to minimise power usage; Iceotope’s 1.03 PUE figure was calculated during several two week periods where systems were running full-time at over 90 percent utilisation. The majority of liquid cooling solutions in the market today are unable to operate over such long periods, and many require constant supervision during the periods in which they are running. Iceotope’s system does not. The Iceotope Solution is decoupled at the module, cabinet and data centre level, offering 2N redundancy throughout and levels of reliability only found in air cooled servers until now.

“Acting as a platform to demonstrate this kind of technological evolution is exactly what our project was set up to do,” said Radek Januszewski, IT Specialist at the PSNC. “We set up this research project in an effort to establish the benefits of liquid cooling and the results we’ve seen so far are incredible. I see no reason why people would buy air cooled systems ever again. We’re trying to educate European HPC users of the most environmentally friendly forms of IT and in that regard, the Iceotope project has been a massive success. The environmental rating of the system is incredible and coupled with the impeccable performance and reliability that it delivers - it is a real game-changer.”

“The PRACE project is a fantastic initiative,” continued Hopton. “While the average person may not necessarily realise it, HPC is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our everyday lives. Supercomputers like the one in Poznan are crunching data 24/7, the kind of data which is often forgotten about but is imperative for our ‘always on, always connected’ lifestyles. The environmental impact of processing such vast amounts of data is also largely unseen and PRACE is fulfilling a vital role in educating those operating these facilities as to how they can do so in the most environmentally friendly way possible.”

Iceotope hits low PUE in overclocked IT environment

Puts liquid cooling to the test in Poland as part of the PRACE project
 
DatacenterDynamics, by Penny Jones, 18 November 2013        
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Tuesday 5 November 2013

Iceotope Helps the 3m Buckley Innovation Centre Reduce Its Environmental Footprint

New HPC servers cut energy use and heat on-site radiators

5th November 2013 – Sheffield-based Iceotope, the liquid cooling IT specialist, has today announced the installation of its revolutionary High Performance Computing (HPC) servers at the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3M BIC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Huddersfield located close to the University campus. As well as requiring roughly half of the overall energy of traditional air cooled systems, these new liquid cooled servers are unique in that they have been looped into the building’s heating system and are actively heating the site via domestic radiators.

“You’d be forgiven for missing the new servers, since they’re virtually silent, but it’s quite remarkable to think what they’re doing,” said Dr Michael Wilson, Technology Director at the 3M BIC. “HPC is often isolated from everyday operations, tucked away in a little sound proof room, but that scenario is far from ideal. Working with Iceotope, we’ve been able to create a wonderfully harmonious working environment at the 3M BIC where HPC has pride of place. We’ve been able to locate powerful computing right next to our users, without detriment to their working procedures. I’m sure our tenants will get quite a kick knowing that the servers are even helping heat the building.”

HPC is of considerable importance to the UK economy and facilitates some of the most pioneering R&D projects in academia and industry. However, while HPC servers and facilities are vital components for any site such as this, they often require a substantial amount of power to run. The state-of-the-art 3M BIC, is no exception and supports the work of a growing number of SMEs and larger companies on site or associated with the centre. Iceotope’s innovative liquid cooled servers are helping the 3M BIC to expand its HPC operations and radically improve the environmental performance of these facilities. Operational since September 2013, the Iceotope servers support business-related activities across a range of fields including detailed mathematical modelling, molecular dynamics, mechanical engineering and physics, while also offering a hands-on demonstration of computational fluid dynamics to those with a potential use for the technique.

While off-the-shelf IT units were once considered suitable for Huddersfield’s research and teaching needs, growing demand and data usage prompted the search for new dedicated systems. Alongside the University of Huddersfield, 3M BIC launched a competitive tender process for such a solution. Iceotope was chosen from three different vendors for a number of reasons including:

·         Substantial environmental benefits – The Iceotope solution uses just 107W to cool 20KW of IT. 3M Novec Engineered Fluids work as the primary coolant with excellent heat transfer performance and exceptional environmental properties.  The fluid can also be reclaimed and reused (extending its life cycle), is non-ozone depleting and has a low global warming potential.  The water used as a secondary coolant in the cooling process can be drawn from ‘grey water’ sources such as rainwater or river water and can also be recycled and used in the central heating system (as demonstrated in the current set-up where the Iceotope servers are connected to domestic radiators).
·         Engineering innovation – To cool IT without traditional fans, Iceotope uses a non-flammable, dielectric liquid coolant which can be in direct contact with electronics, because it does not conduct electricity. Using Iceotope’s unique and patented design, the servers are encapsulated inside metal cases or Iceotope Modules that do not require an elaborate pump to move the dielectric coolant. Instead, the fluid harvests the heat from all components on the server by lively natural convection. All that is required to transport the heat away from the servers is a simple low energy pump and this process allows the Iceotope HPC servers to run with exceptional efficiency and to be located anywhere, regardless of temperature, humidity or air pollution.
·         Virtually silent operations – Traditional HPC servers can be very loud and often need to be located in custom-built facilities where users must wear ear protection. The Iceotope servers, however, are virtually silent in operation and those at the 3M BIC are actually installed inside a small lab filled with academics, researchers and students using the system on a daily basis for its computing power.
·         Low cost – Due to the low energy usage of the Iceotope solution, and it not requiring expensive ancillary data centre facilities such as computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, humidity control systems or air purification, the Iceotope system is an affordable IT solution for universities, cutting CAPEX and OPEX in equal measure.
·         A hands-on demonstration of computational fluid dynamics – The way in which the Iceotope servers cool electronics allows students at the University to see a working demonstration of computational fluid dynamics. The Iceotope solution is designed symmetrically, allowing for access either side. The transparent cabinet doors show Iceotope’s various connectivity options in front and the highly convective liquid coolant flowing through the system and over the electronics in back. This is a valuable hands-on experience for students that cloud cannot deliver.

“The University of Huddersfield has a long standing reputation for forming successful collaborations between academia and industry,” said Dr Wilson. “Indeed, our work with Iceotope and 3M should be taken as a great case in point. The 3M BIC already houses a range of revolutionary technology on its Innovation Avenue, so it was only fitting that we would install an HPC system to match. Iceotope certainly fits the bill in that respect. Environmental performance was also a major factor when we were researching the HPC options available and we are extremely impressed with the kind of efficiency savings Iceotope’s systems have offered so far.”

“IT is an absolutely terrific generator of heat and a massive consumer of power,” explains Iceotope CEO, Peter Hopton. “Servers can get incredibly warm and at a certain point, everything begins to melt, break or fail. It’s this hardware failure that is the problem, not the heat as such. While most servers will desperately try to remove and dump the heat using spinning fans, at Iceotope, we endeavoured to create a solution that was able to re-use the waste heat while keeping the electronics cool. It always seemed a strange scenario to me, using fans to cool a computer in the same room in which you’ll have the heaters on full blast. Thankfully, the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre no longer has to work like this.”

“We’re thrilled to be working with the 3M BIC and the University of Huddersfield on this project. It’s a great demonstration of Iceotope’s technology, the Innovation Centre, and of course, the University itself.”
 

Liquid-cooled computer provides central heating in Huddersfield

Iceotope, the Sheffield-based liquid cooling system developer, has installed liquid-cooled servers at the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, owned by the University of Huddersfield.

Electronics Weekly, Richard Wilson, 5th November 2013
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Monday 4 November 2013

The PEA Awards 2013 – Finalists Announced

Iceotope has been nominated for two awards; Business Person of the Year and Best Energy-Saving Idea.

Business Person of the Year
This category rewards the steps taken by individuals in the business world to deliver goods or services in a sustainability-orientated way, demonstrating that financial profit can go hand-in-hand with respect for people and the planet.

Best Energy-Saving Idea, Sponsored by Good Energy
This category rewards the individual who has come up with the best carbon-saving idea, regardless of whether this idea has already been put into practice or is still in the pipeline.

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