Communications of the ACM
New Energy-Saving Facility Boosts Stanford's Computing Prowess
Besides expanding the university's computation resources, the Stanford Research Computing Center uses air-driven cooling that saves energy costs.
Credit: L.A. Cicero
The new Stanford Research Computing Center (SRCC) is meeting the rising computational needs of researchers on campus while saving energy through air-driven cooling.
The SRCC could eventually hold up to 180 refrigerator-sized racks of servers, enabling Stanford faculty to store huge volumes of data and to execute the complex computations necessary for today's research.
Of the SRCC's 3 megawatts of power, about one-third is allocated to the School of Medicine and one-sixth to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The remainder will be shared by other interested Stanford researchers.
The facility uses an entirely air-driven system to keep the servers in the temperature range of 60 to 80 degrees, which could save up to $1 million annually on the cost of cooling server rooms. Air comes in through the facility's roof and passes through industrial-sized fans and into the server room. Designed for efficient air flow, back-to-back rows of servers take the cool air in through their front and send heated air out into a sealed passage between rows, which opens to an outlet in the building's roof.
The SRCC will free up research space on campus, where faculty with high computation needs have tucked away servers in closets or in clusters within buildings or departments.
From Stanford Report (CA)
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