Cooling the server room

We had the same problem here. The main thing that helped for the computers (by monitering the computer temp.) was air vents (cross air vents are a plus) plus enough clearence around the machine. We did however add an air conditioner but thats only for the summer so whoever works there dosnt feel the NY humidity.

My advice would be different than what you've gotten from your consultants. If your servers are mission critical, I believe you want to have control of the air temperature of the server room, rather than leaving that in the hands of your landlord.My advice would be to spend the money to have your own air conditioning unit installed dedicated to your server room, along with a service contract with an agreed upon response time. Correctly installed, the dedicated a/c unit will exhaust heat outside the server room (usually via the overhead), thus eliminating the issue of "adding heat" to the room. Basically, if you can't afford to have your servers shutting down due to overtemp, then you need to be able to control the temperature of the room yourself without depending on the building engineer (who normally goes home at 4:00 pm, in my experience). Just my 2 cents worth...

I disagree with the consultants although it would likely be the cheaper fix. What you really need is a split-unit air conditioner with the evaporator and blower in the server room and the condensor somewhere the waste heat doesn't matter (sometimesin the plenum space but more often on the roof or other exterior surface).

With energy costs going through the roof, more and more commercial building operators are only supplying cooling during business hours and you can't afford that variation because, among other things, it means failures are most likely when no one is there to fix them (unless you're an organization with 7x24 on-site support).

I have been very happy with the Mitsubishi split-unit air conditioners we use and I work in a relatively temperature hostile environment (110F by this weekend...).

But it's also true that your landlord may or may not permit this installation for reasons good or bad, so he/she should certainly be included in the discussions of options.paul

Aloha!

Well, we added the aircon system in our room and it seems to be working well. I know this is obvious but since it appears that nobody mentioned it (or we missed it?) you need to make sure you leave your monitors and other non-essential equip OFF when not in use. Many times I am surprised by System (Net) Admins who don't do this and at the same time wonder why its so hot in the room!? Monitors really give off a lot of heat.

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