From the CTO’s corner: Simon Gardner, Oper8 Global Group
For anyone who has had teenage kids, you can probably relate to the messy bedroom. While it’s usually a source of frustration to most parents, for some kids it’s a matter of pride – to the extent it’s become a TikTok trend!
Odd start – what’s that all got to do with data centres?
The impact of a dirty room is more than just being unsightly. It can create stress, interfere with your ability to concentrate, and interrupt your sleep. Put a technology overlay on that, and there are a lot of similarities with a dirty data centre.
Microscopic dust and debris are a data centre’s enemy, compromising performance, increasing energy consumption, clogging fans, causing greater wear and tear on equipment, and even leading to downtime. That can jeopardise any operational targets, particularly uptime, but also if you have set yourself sustainability or net zero goals.
Design for clean
Measures to keep your data centre clean need to start already at the design stages.
Think about where you can or need to deploy components (or all) of the data centre with an IP66 (ingress protection) rating. An IP66 rating means your facility is dust proof and water proof, ideal for harsh environments, but also the perfect start to minimising any dirt making it inside. You can also design to other higher or lower IP ratings depending on your requirements.
To achieve an IP66 rating, micro, modular or prefabricated complete units make that job easier with the build and testing all taking place in the factory before shipping to site. You just need to include other tools to keep dirt out when the door is opened, like bursts of air to blow particles away and sticky mats to capture dirt or dust on shoes.
Your choice of cooling methods is also a factor. Immersion or direct-to-chip cooling reduces the need for air cooling albeit storage and network devices still require this, which moves dust around the facility. In addition, as a closed system, liquid cooling is less likely to introduce external contaminants than air-cooled systems. One thing you do have to consider with immersion cooling, however, is how you clean off residual dielectric liquids from components without damaging them when you need to service or upgrade your servers.
Once you get to the build stage – either preparing the site before installing your prefab unit or constructing your data centre entirely on-site – maintaining good building practices is one thing, but the process can’t avoid creating some dust and debris.
Navigating from build to operation
After construction, a meticulous clean to reach your required ISO 14644-1:2015 air cleanliness classification is essential, targeting all surfaces, above-floor, sub-floor, overhead voids, hardware exteriors, HVAC systems and touch points. That ensures a pristine environment before you install and commission your equipment.
From that point on, to maintain a clean facility you need to establish regular cleaning schedules and also environmental monitoring, particularly indoor air quality (IAQ) sensors to alert you to any unexpected increase in particulate matter and pollutants in the air, along with temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels. That means you can investigate either a leak or breach of your dustproofing measures, or some problem with your air filtration and HVAC systems.
I mentioned earlier that a dirty data centre can jeopardise operational targets, like sustainability of net zero goals, and the impact of increasing particulate and pollutant levels could be quite subtle and difficult to identify. Data from these environmental sensors becomes important over time in tracking and analysing the impact that changes in cleanliness levels has on energy consumption. It’s an old reference, but it’s something Google did by taking historical data from thousands of sensors and using it to train deep neural networks to improve its data centre energy efficiency.
Your IAQ sensors are also valuable in assessing the effectiveness of any scheduled cleans. You should have a series of recommended cleaning activities you undertake daily through to annually. The outcome of these cleans should be reflected in improvements in air quality. If you aren’t achieving the expected uptick after a specific clean, then that’s the time to either review your cleaning practices or get a new cleaner!
Ultimately, keeping your data centre clean is about constant vigilance and constant maintenance. Circling back to where we started, Understanding Teenagers tells us that while cleaning and maintaining their rooms are not amongst their priorities, teenagers should be facing up to their responsibilities and learning to maintain their living space in order.
It’s no different for data centre operators. Cleaning has to be a non-discretionary expense and regime as it is necessary to maintain uptime and energy efficiency, critical metrics for your data centre.