Today’s server designs continue to package more electronics consuming higher levels of power in smaller and smaller spaces which increases the demand on the cooling subsystem within a server. These trends continue to drive the total cooling power and airflow demands up, resulting in increased acoustics. Due to the imposed high cooling requirements, data centers are frequently limited by the amount of flow that the raised floor environments are capable of providing. Server cooling demands are outpacing the data center airflow capabilities, resulting in energy inefficient scenarios as well as increasingly high acoustics levels.
Given these concerns, there is a dire need for new thermal management techniques. This paper describes a new technique that offers more advanced yet simplified user controls, which provide the end user the ability to minimize acoustic signature and cooling energy spent, while maximizing the server performance.
