Processor Magazine writer Curt Harler interviews AFCO Systems chief technology officer, John Consoli, about the company’s next generation datacenter enclosures. The article points out that “the changes AFCO has made to its offerings make the systems more upgradeable, meaning IT managers will be able to swap parts and components and expedite tasks such as cable management. The new line will help to reduce the number of individualized replacement parts and components required to be warehoused by data centers, which is good news for budget-conscious SMEs.”

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New Cabinet Series Includes Ease-of-Upgrades, More Options for Datacenters with High Density Environments. Today’s datacenter enclosures require greater flexibility in order to meet the often competing demands of Green IT and a green balance sheet. This includes equipment that can be upgraded inside the datacenter in order to meet new requirements. To provide IT, datacenter and facilities professionals the flexibility and future-proofing they require for their datacenter power and cooling enclosures, AFCO Systems (www.afcosystems.com) is introducing a new generation of its flagship passive, high-density and extreme high-density datacenter enclosures. Full release

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When a leading national financial services firm began building its new environmentally-responsible office tower in New York City, datacenter construction – including the choice of enclosures – was also required to meet certain rigorous standards for reducing the building’s potential carbon footprint.

Challenge
In its bid to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the financial industry leader conducted a competitive, multivendor evaluation process to select a partner capable of meeting its strict power and cooling requirements. Among other things, the firm required a company with manufacturing facilities located within a LEED-specified 500-mile radius.

One challenge became apparent immediately – the customer needed to fit many racks in a tight space. Due to the dimensions and space considerations of its datacenter, the financial services customer required a manufacturer that could engineer a nonstandard width rack and enclosure for its equipment.

Solution
The firm chose AFCO Systems, a recognized global leader in the design and manufacture of advanced enclosure technology for mission-critical datacenter environments. AFCO Systems engineers quickly produced a prototype never before seen in the industry – one that doesn’t exceed 20 inches in width, four inches slimmer than the industry standard. The new thin, strong rack and cable management system was perfect for the planned high-density datacenter environment.

By using its patented Sidecar technology, designed to maximize the usable space within an enclosure, AFCO was also able to move the financial services firm’s power and communication cables (including patch panels) outside of the cabinet frame, resulting in an increase of usable enclosure space of up to 33 percent. To date, AFCO Systems has delivered over 800 of the uniquely designed cabinets to the customer.

Unexpected benefits
In order to minimize packaging waste during shipping of the enclosures, AFCO engineers developed a unique reusable packaging approach that was subsequently adopted by the customer as a requirement for all large equipment deliveries.

A large, nationwide media and communications provider – delivering cable television programming as well as Internet connectivity – had a datacenter expansion project to support increasing consumer and business usage of broadband Internet access when it selected AFCO Systems, a global leader in the design and manufacture of advanced enclosure technology for mission-critical datacenter environments. 

Challenge
Together, customer and vendor faced a dilemma: How do you squeeze a large datacenter facility into a small space? As a media and communications provider, the customer had unique cabling requirements. In addition, the low ceiling height of its datacenter meant that AFCO Systems engineers needed to build a custom computer rack, cable management system and datacenter enclosure – space and cable management were key to the success of the datacenter expansion.

Solution
AFCO recognizes that companies in industries as demanding as media and communications require quick turnaround of precision engineering and that nothing can happen in a datacenter build-out until the cabinets are installed. It’s a responsibility that AFCO takes seriously. The tight relationship between the customer’s cable design team and AFCO engineers enabled them to quickly generate multiple iterations of technical specifications and create a prototype rack within one week for testing.

Unexpected Benefits
Ultimately, AFCO began delivery of over 100 racks to the site four weeks later – all on spec and well within the tight time schedule required.

One of the most critical parameters in the operation of a datacenter is the inlet temperature of the servers. The ability to control these temperatures is essential for the effective performance of any datacenter. In this paper we demonstrate why control is important, how it can be achieved, and also present a comparison of the currently available datacenter cooling technologies, along with an assessment of their control capabilities. We will also show how Kool-IT™ technology provides superior control over more conventional (more…)

When you’re recognized as a hip, environmentally conscious clothier whose brand names are status symbols among tots, tweens, teens and twenty-somethings, you had better run a pretty cool datacenter as well. Its mid-west campus is the hub of hip for this premium clothier. It’s also where the company’s global datacenter provides a steady stream of point-of-sale information from hundreds of retail locations for multiple clothing brands and coordinates orders from its web site, which ranks among the top 100 web retailers.

Challenge
The company recognized the need for a larger datacenter capable of 24×7 information-gathering to help it keep a pulse on sales and maintain a smooth distribution model. It designed a huge 6,000 sq. ft. datacenter with the capability to double in the future. The only challenge it still faced was choosing a power and cooling system capable of supporting the planned high-density “blade server farm” computing environment.

Solution
The clothier selected AFCO Systems’ patented Kool-IT™ technology, in order to support its 24×7 worldwide information needs in the most energy-efficient manner. The datacenter design plans and construction incorporated AFCO’s Kool-IT datacenter enclosures right from the start, resulting in an extremely efficient and unique design which employs both a raised floor to supply cooling and a lower ceiling that acts as a return plenum for directing cabinet exhaust.

Unexpected Benefits
As part of the datacenter’s commissioning process, the retailer hired an independent engineering firm to test the AFCO Systems Kool-IT datacenter enclosure systems using load banks to simulate heating and airflow. The firm also used sophisticated simulation software to model the datacenter using a traditional passive cabinet, hot-aisle, cold-aisle (HACA) cooling approach. The test results showed that the AFCO Kool-IT active high-density datacenter enclosures accounted for a savings of nearly one-third over traditional power and cooling methods – in this case a savings of $800,000 annually. By also utilizing “free cooling” methods to remove heat from water chillers as it is dissipated into the room, the retailer has been able to exceed American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) temperature guidelines.

AFCO recognizes the frequent dual commitment to customer satisfaction and energy efficiency in datacenter design and we’re proud to be selected for our leadership in providing power and cooling datacenter solutions.