IT Uygulamaları

CeBIT IT Fair, Part II: Highlights 2010

By: Frank Völkel

On our second tour of CeBIT, we touch on water-cooled data centers, plastic simulation of business processes, 3D Web sites, and offerings that bring SAP functionality to iPhone.

Water cooling in Data Center. (photo: Frank Völkel)

If nowhere else, CeBIT’s significance can be seen in the impressive number of visitors that filed into Halls 2 to 5 on its first two days. Hanover, Germany’s IT trade show remains the leader in the field of business, particularly in addressing the global IT industry and highlighting key developments. This year, for example, there are many more companies focusing on smartphones – especially Apple’s popular iPhone – as well as on apps that can access data records on company networks and provide mobile graphical analyses at the push of a button. Meanwhile, data center operators are seeing new opportunities in connection with cloud computing, as well as and new energy-efficiency requirements for entire facilities.
With software modeling no longer able to cover the increasing complexity of companies’ processes, plastic functional models similar to model railroads are also providing greater insights and revealing schematic deficiencies that used to remain hidden.
Here’s an overview of our topics:

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Water in data centers?

Water and electronic components are usually not the best combination. As such, the conventional wisdom at many data centers is that air alone should be used to cool fully equipped server racks. This eliminates the danger of water coming into contact with the components. The Rittal company, however, attempts to position water-cooling elements (with upstream compressors) as closely as possible to components without running the risk of water leaking. In the equipment’s final functional stage, it passes air through a water-filled heat exchanger and then uses it for rack cooling.
Cooling is a serious issue at many data centers. Space is often at such a premium that blade servers and older, component-packed machines are installed as closely together as possible; the resulting lost heat causes room and rack temperatures to rise. The consequences are clear: increased risk of downtime, higher electricity costs, and cooling technology that is often not up to the task.
In the years ahead, increasing energy costs will make data center operations significantly more expensive. The only way to stem this trend will be to achieve perfectly balanced coordination of all of the areas involved – from applications to IT hardware and infrastructure. Otherwise, data centers of the future will not be able to provide cost-efficient processes. Essential in this context is the measurement of all consumption values at data centers. In addition to total current, this includes outflow ratings such as the power input of cooling systems and control units.