Cleaning the air in the data center as a way to extend the life of the equipment and reduce costs

The fact that the state of the atmosphere in large and not very large cities of most countries leaves much to be desired, they have been saying for a long time. In many localities, air pollution has reached a critical point. And after all, the problem is that all data centers are also concerned. We wrote about this, for example, here .

Now, many experts say that in data centers that are located in industrial regions, the amount of damage to equipment and the failure of individual elements of the infrastructure is increasing. The reason for this is polluted air that is not properly cleaned.

In cities such as Los Angeles, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, equipment in data centers often wears out and fails much faster than in data centers located away from sources of atmospheric pollution. Worst of all, the overwhelming majority of data centers are located right next to megalopolises. There are a lot of examples of companies placing data centers away from them, but still this is only a small fraction.
')
Air pollution can affect the health of personnel, and, as mentioned above, the state of the equipment. Atmospheric pollutants are a relatively unforeseen factor of external influence on data center equipment.

So what's the problem?

The fact is that a number of pollutants have a corrosive effect on electronic equipment. This, at first, imperceptible process is fraught with damage to a large number of components, which can lead to mechanical damage or infrastructure failure.



Modern air intake systems are equipped with filters. But still most often the atmospheric air taken from the outside is not cleaned. In addition, polluted air penetrates inside the data center in other ways - for example, through doors, during their opening and closing. The most serious pollutants are sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and fine dust fractions.

There is simply a huge concentration of all this in Beijing, where the authorities almost every week declare an alarm over air pollution. Such air destroys not only electronic equipment, it provokes and accelerates corrosion of the elements of racks, individual elements of the energy infrastructure.

Studies on the negative impact of polluted industrial emissions of air on server equipment and data centers as a whole have been conducted for a long time. One of the most extensive research conducted by Intel.



But the results of this study are a simple statement of the fact that polluted air increases the wear rate of equipment in some regions. Baidu’s study of its data centers located in Beijing is more productive. I must say that this company needs DC in this region, but the problems as a result are almost more than advantages.

Worst of all are cooling systems that can corrode for months and at one point simply fail. And this is already fraught with long downtime and financial losses, very significant losses. Even if the equipment does not fail, it begins to consume more energy.

What to do?

Either do not use the air intake outside, and work with autonomous cooling systems, or use special filters - both for cooling systems and for all other sources of external atmosphere in the data center.

In addition, the installation in the data center of systems that provide and monitor air quality in real time, is becoming an increasingly relevant solution. This allows for optimal performance for filtration systems.

If an air filtration system is installed, it should work with both aerosols and dust, and with gases. Filtration systems with activated carbon and filters with glass microfibres work best.