[tech] Additional/upgraded air conditioner

[Andrew Adamson]

The problem with the current cooling is twofold:
1. We've added several machines to the machine room since the aircon was 
specced and installed
2. The aircon we have isn't being used to its full potential due to the 
airflow in the room

The first issue will be largely solved in the near future with the new 
storage server and the retirement of the SAN. This will remove the thermal 
load of several shelves of disks as well as two P4 era servers. There are 
other things we can look in terms of hardware, such as virtualising some 
of the older hardware machines (progcomp, pomona, sophocles, dagon), but I 
suspect the new storage server will solve a lot of our problems.

The second issue can again be split into two-issues; the cool air isn't 
being evenly directed towards the three racks (causing the right rack to 
be hotter), and the hot air being generated by all three racks isn't being 
extracted properly. Both of these issues can be resolved with some 
blanking plates on the racks, an air baffle on the aircon to direct the 
air, and if necessary it's relatively easy to design and build a duct with 
a blower on it to extract the hot air from behind the racks to outside.

On a side note, we have the option on the aircon of taking uncooled air 
from either inside or outside. At the moment the source of air is 
selected manually using a lever on the front of the aircon. Would it be 
worth making something that can automate this action in order to be 
cooling the air that is already the coolest at any one time?

Andrew Adamson
bob at ucc.asn.au

|"If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them."                |
| ---Peter's Laws                                                        |

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013, Andrew Gozzard wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> In the wake of today's overheating issues, it has been proposed that we 
> get and install a better/second air conditioner. Suggestions and comments 
> are welcome.
> 
> Best Regards,
> [GOZ]
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