This legacy data center’s major hurdle when
addressing the cold aisle containment system was being compliant with the fire marshals’
strict requirements; the private university has its own fire marshal.

Solution:

Instor custom designed the hard containment to allow
overhead fire suppression and detection systems to function properly. In order
to allow access to the fire suppression system and smoke detectors in the cold
aisles, a containment roof on these pods could not be implemented to contain
cold air. The sides of the contained pods implemented sliding Electrorack
doors.

All custom polycarbonate panels, normally cloudy in
appearance, were designed to be clear so that anyone inside the pod could
clearly view the EXIT signs from within.

Rows were offset, so Instor custom designed clear
polycarbonate corner gap panels for these aisles. Instor also designed several
polycarbonate walls and gap panels to accommodate older bulky equipment.

We also provided 166 fire resistant floor seal pillows
of varying sizes (4”x4”, 6”x6”, 9”x9”, 12”x12”) and placed them in holes in the
raised floor tiles to improve static pressure below.

Benefits:

The university significantly improved
PUE and consequently received over $300,000 in rebates from PG&E. According
to Mark Monroe, the Director of Sustainable Computing at Sun Microsystems, data
center managers can save 4 percent in energy costs for every degree of upward
change in the set point. The university was able to raise set
points 6 degrees, with an estimated 24% total energy savings each month.

Williams-Sonoma’s 20,000 sq. ft. data center in Rocklin, CA was not meeting cooling requirements with 6 running CRAC units. They had three 20-ton CRAC units and three 30-ton CRAC units in use, and without improving cooling efficiency they were going to have to install another 30-ton unit in order to sufficiently cool their data center.

Solution:

Williams-Sonoma contacted Instor to employ cold aisle containment and airflow efficiency solutions. Instor began by containing 12 pods with Seal Tech’s clear seiden crystal classA-1 fire rated curtains and a custom engineered retractable ceiling.

The retractable ceiling, manufactured by Cooler Bytes, is self contained and designed to roll back onto itself in case of fire. The clear vinyl roof is mounted with a fuse link on one side and is able to retract with a spring-loaded wheel on the other. We tied the retractable ceiling into the EPO fire suppression system with resettable electronic fuse links.

Instor engineered custom rear cabinet doors with a cooling vent fin designed to push exhaust heat up, allowing it to return to the CRAC unit faster. We also sealed off over 80 holes of varying shapes and sizes in the 18” raised floor with customized Sealeze brush grommets. Instor installed a facility management system from Geist to control and monitor all CRAC units remotely and set up thermal sensors within each pod to enable observation of the server temperatures in real time. In addition, Instor set up power meters at transfer switches and PDUs, and Williams-Sonoma is currently implementing Server Tech POPS units as they replace cabinets so they can monitor and control power on the outlet level as well.

Benefits:

Williams-Sonoma spent $90,000 for CRAC modifications and containment. They received $25,000 in PG&E rebates and continue to save $12,000 per month on power (at 10 cents/ kilowatt) with an ROI of less than 6 months. With the RLE monitoring Williams-Sonoma is able to get a true PUE reading and consistently monitor data center conditions.

A large California power company’s legacy data center was built in the 1970s and was designed to house mainframes and tape libraries. In 2010 they upgraded CRAC units, water chillers, and power distribution systems. As part of their overhaul, they decided to experiment with cold aisle containment and asked Instor to help design and install their first containment pod.
The client also needed a way to monitor and record the data center’s environment to compare efficiency before and after the project.

The goal was to discover best practices to be applied in their new data center planned for 2012 in an unknown location.

Solution:

Instor began by installing SynapSense, a wireless environmental sensor array that records and monitors the data center’s temperatures, humidity and air pressure— all in real time and in multiple locations. This was the first step to measure the data center’s baseline PUE.
Instor also custom designed over 50 cabinets to control airflow by utilizing blanking systems and brush panels.

The power company decided to implement cold aisle containment on one pod as an experiment before moving forward with the entire data center. The first trial pod utilized soft containment with clear Seal Tech Seiden Crystal class A-1 fire rated curtains on both sides of the aisles and a roof from the ceiling to the tops of each cabinet.

Cooler Bytes created a soft ceiling retractable Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle Containment Solution. The pod consisted of two retractable curtain devices.

A national healthcare provider wanted to drastically reduce the PUE in their Northern California data center in order to qualify for an energy savings rebate and to save thousands in monthly energy costs. This organization has a national marketing campaign regarding going paperless and reducing their carbon footprint; while saving money was a key benefit, following the company’s “green” edict to be more energy efficient was the end goal.

Solution:

The client asked Instor to help with a large cold aisle containment project in their Northern California data center.
Instor contained 22 cold aisle containment pods with solid polycarbonate sliding doors at the front of each Because this location was a legacy data center, not all equipment was flush, and there were many offset rows. We custom engineered 80-inch steel gap panels to adjust for row discrepancies.

The rear of each aisle was contained with clear seiden crystal class A1 fire rated vinyl curtains due to design restraints of the RPP power system access. To complete the cold aisle containment, we sealed the top of the pods with Ceilume Environmental Institute Certified ceiling tiles supported by standard T-Bar ceiling grid.

Benefits:

The client is currently gathering their baseline power consumption figures to submit to their Utility Provider.

Built in 1960’s IBM’s Boulder, CO campus has been known until recently to be the largest contiguous data center space in North America. With that extended history, it is no surprise that the facility holds legacy computer rooms, renovated computer rooms and completely renewed computer rooms.

While most of the data center space is raised floor, both the IT equipment itself and the infrastructure supporting that equipment is of varying ages and capabilities. Despite the age of any one room or the equipment within it, all of the equipment must function fully. We were faced with a heterogeneous environment containing different challenges to keep up the health of the data center.

Providing a best possible environment for the IT equipment in these varying computer rooms was both IBM and Instor’s goal. These data center rooms are dynamic, meaning, equipment is moved or replaced frequently, the result– partially full server racks. All of these combined factors were causing bypass airflow heat issues.
Cold air from HVAC units, which was supposed to be directed into cold aisles, was actually being pulled into hot aisles before it could effectively cool the servers. As a consequence, the facilities manager had to set CRAC units to a lower temperature in order to make up for both the loss of cold air in cold aisles and the cooling of hot air in the hot aisles.

Another issue that raised cooling costs and lowered efficiency was rack displacement and offset aisles. There were an unequal numbers of cabinets from row to row, and rows that were in line often had cabinets of different height beside one another, so containment had previously been impossible because the hot and cold aisles were not flush vertically or horizontally.

Solution:

The first step Instor took was to contain the empty rack spaces with Electrorack’s ScaleIt blanking panels in order to stop cold air from immediately being pulled into the hot aisles and losing its integrity. 25,000 1U blanking panels were installed in various 45-52U cabinets.

The next step was to seal off the 15 most vulnerable cold aisles with Seal-Tech’s clear vinyl curtains. This contained the cold air within the cold aisles and ensured the delivery of cold air to the servers.

Benefits:

The client informed Instor that the installation of the curtains with the specially engineered hinge was a breeze and they were very impressed with the design and look of it. In addition, the director of their division was very pleased with both the aesthetics and functionality of the curtains.
Between the 25,000 blanking panels and installation of custom cold-aisle containment, the data center was able to significantly improve cooling efficiency and reduce monthly energy costs.

Los Angeles and San Diego – January 11, 2011 – Instor Solutions, a leading provider of data center infrastructure management solutions, today announced its New Year’s plans to open two new offices – one in Los Angeles and one in San Diego – to meet increased demand for data center services in Southern California.

The increased demand for Instor’s services (including data center retrofits) in Southern California is driven in part by the introduction of attractive energy efficiency and sustainability incentives from utilities and government agencies.

“Instor has managed data center projects throughout the US, and we have always had a strong local client base in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Bob Hancock, President, Instor Solutions. “Now it is time to expand to meet the needs of our clients in Southern California by assembling a team of data center professionals in Los Angeles and San Diego.”

Instor Vice President and Los Angeles-native Shana Meulmester will oversee the expansion. “I could not be happier to bring Silicon Valley’s trusted data center leader to my hometown,” said Shana Meulmester, Vice President, Instor Solutions. “I look forward to building the strong and reputable teams that will help enterprises in Southern California implement cost-effective data center efficiency initiatives.”

Instor’s expertise in Green IT best practices makes it well suited to assist enterprises of all sizes with efficiency initiatives. For over 25 years, Instor has served California’s technology hub by providing data center services such as hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment and airflow/power management and monitoring. Instor is currently serving the needs of some of Southern California’s largest healthcare and biotech companies, as well as non-profits and universities.

The expansion to Southern California closely follows Instor’s new Airflow Division and partnership with Triad Floors.

About Instor Solutions

Fremont, California-based Instor Solutions is a leader in data center infrastructure solutions. Instor partners with manufacturers who produce some of the most innovative solutions for the data center, including intelligent power distribution and monitoring, environmental monitoring, asset management, KVM and custom server enclosures. Instor provides a wide variety of products and services used to support IT in both large and small enterprises.

Additional information can be found at http://www.instor.com.

Fremont, Calif. – November 17, 2010 – Instor Solutions, a leader in data center infrastructure management solutions, announced today that it has launched a data center airflow division to accelerate adoption of Instor’s thermal- and airflow-management products and services.

In concert with the creation of its new data center airflow division, Instor has announced that it is partnering with Triad Floors, a leading manufacturer of data-center floor tiles.  The partnership adds Triad’s patented Hi-Plume Fin, which improves airflow through perforated tiles and installs in less than ten minutes, to Instor’s palette of data-center infrastructure offerings.

Instor’s consultants will leverage Triad’s “River Cooling” philosophy, which seeks to improve Airflow Utilization Efficiency (AUE) by accelerating airflow through the center of the perforated tile, maximizing airflow dispersal to the server boundary layer and minimizing the thermal decay often found in traditional flat-bottom tiles, which typically allow only 28 percent of cooled supply air to reach servers.

“We are delighted to partner with Triad to offer our customers airflow management solutions that require no data center downtime,” said Bob Hancock, President of Instor Solutions.  “Since many of today’s data centers are overcooled, airflow management is an easy and cost-effective way for data center managers to reduce their energy consumption and lower their power bills by up to 40 percent.”

About Instor Solutions

Instor Solutions is a leader in data center infrastructure solutions. Instor partners with manufacturers who produce some of the most innovative solutions for the data center, including intelligent power distribution and monitoring, environmental monitoring, asset management, KVM, and custom server enclosures. Instor provides a wide variety of products and services used to support IT in both large and small enterprises.

Additional information can be found at http://www.instor.com.