Oracle's Jordan, Utah, Data Center ... Very Cool

Brought to you by AFCOM

Two years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and ASHRAE acknowledged Oracle as a leader in data center energy conservation. Shortly after, DatacenterDynamics gave the company an award to recognize its “breakthrough innovations for large data centers in cold climate.”

Both honors were largely a result of Oracle’s approach to cooling its 30,000-square-foot data center in Jordan, Utah, using air-side economization. A three-person panel will present a case study on its design at Data Center World in New Orleans Sept. 12-15.

“The innovation centers on the use of waste heat from the IT equipment for space humidification in the winter; evaporative cooling in summer; reduced primary airflow to the IT equipment; strategic hot air separation with recirculation; and novel controls that enable the data center to achieve very high cooling efficiency at a lower initial investment cost,” according to Oracle’s website.

The premise for economization is that when ambient temperatures are favorable, it is the use of direct fresh-air cooling by filtering outside air into the data center, through ducting and use of an automatic control system. The free cooling reference describes the situation when outside air is both sufficiently cool and dry to supply the data center without requiring additional cooling. In some colder climates the expelled warm air from the data center may be used, so that the supplied air is not too cold.

With efficient operations and low operating Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), the cooling system is expected to save over 41,000 MWh a year and the equivalent of 37,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually compared to an average efficient data center, according to Oracle. The data center is supported with a 95,000-square foot structure to house infrastructure equipment and a 44,000-square foot office space.

Oracle calls the facility “an object lesson in dematerializing the data center, eliminating unnecessary hardware, and leveraging advances in modern design and technology, particularly in electrical infrastructure. The end result: a leading edge data center driving innovation, efficiency, reliability and simplicity.

Oracle Project Cell 2.1 – A Critical Space Journey: Innovation, Efficiency and Simplicity (Panel - Case Study) will be presented on Thursday, Sept. 15, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Register for Data Center World today! All AFCOM members will receive a $300 discount.

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