Many people have rooms in their homes where they dump the things that they do not feel like putting away. You may be embarrassed to say your home office had become one of those rooms since you usually work from your company’s office. Now that you are working from home, however, you realize that it is time to get this space in order! Those of your coworkers that watch your videos see the one angle where they can’t see your junk, but the picture from every other angle is far more alarming.
What organizing projects are you working on while social distancing? The internet is full of before and after shots as the nation adjusts to a new normal. In spite of all the changes that are occurring in personal work spaces and locations, there are other parts of the work environment that remain the same. From the thermal containment systems that are used by some large health organizations to the cold aisle containment options that may be in place to support financial institutions, the data storage industry remains increasingly important.
Cold Aisle Containment Options Support a Wide Range of Industries
Few businesses needed a pandemic or a rating of essential to understand the importance of hot or cold aisle containment options and all of the people who are needed to keep data storage units running. In fact, during the weeks, and now months, after the first lock down or shelter in place orders were started, the data center industry has had to remain on high alert.
There are very few humans humans in many data centers and part of the goal of a good center is to keep as few people in these spaces as possible. During the latest changes and threats of transmission of a virus that has changed the way the world operates, of course, most data center providers have severly limited customer access to these spaces. And while an in person tour of an available data center may have been standard procedure in the past, it is more likely that virtual tours will become more common.
In some instances there have been data centers that before any changes could be put in place there have been customers who have tested positive after being in a space and in an effort to be extra cautious these areas were completely void of any workers for 14 days. In the recent days when scientists and doctors alike are beginning to think that transmission of the Coronavirus is more air borne than on surfaces, of course, these types of situations of clearing an entire data center are less common.R
Like changes in every other business, of course, the threat of Covid-19 meant that there are more stringent and deeper cleaning processes in place in an effort to make sure that environments remain as safe as possible.
Consider some of these statistics about the use of hot or cold aisle containment options and various kinds of server racks and the essential role they continue to play in the economy of the nation:
- More than 65% of IT equipment failures are directly attributed to inadequate, poorly maintained, or failed air conditioning in the server room. In a time when so much more work is being done remotely, it is even more important that these failures are avoided by proper planning and implementation.
- Based on current electricity price increases and the carbon levy, this cost could rise by as much as 67% in the next three years. The best and the newest air conditioning efficiency improvements, however, can reduce this cost by up to 35%.
- Traffic from wireless and mobile devices was expected to account for more than 63% of total IP traffic by the year 2021. This percentage, however, might be even greater with the latest changes of working from home.
- 80% of data centers employ or are looking into installing hot or cold aisle containment systems to keep servers at the correct temperatures in an effort to reduce energy use and costs.
- The power density of a data center is 100 times more than that of a large commercial office building and is equivalent to nine small sized shopping malls the size of a Wal-Mart.
