Data centre operations are being disrupted by climate change, which is unanticipated. These vital components of technology infrastructure are melting down more frequently as heat waves become more commonplace around the world, endangering a key component of the internet.
The London-based data centres of Google and Oracle were taken down in July when Britain faced record-high temperatures of more than 40 degrees celsius. Many clients experienced website disruptions as a result of the heat wave, which rendered their data centre cooling equipment unusable. In particular, WordPress-hosted websites in Europe were disrupted by the Google outage.
These cooling systems are made to control the amount of heat that servers and other data centre machinery release. However, cooling systems become overworked and unable to function when internal heat meets the high exterior temperature of heat waves. Important data centre machinery as a result overheats and burns out.
Technology companies now fear protracted disruptions to their IT operations as heat waves move into the autumn months. According to a company email sent by former Twitter vice president of engineering Carrie Fernandez, when extreme heat at its Sacramento data centre triggered an outage in September, Twitter found itself in a “non-redundant situation.” She referred to the situation as “unprecedented,” adding that the heat wave was to blame for “the complete shutdown of physical equipment.”
Despite the fact that heat waves are becoming widespread throughout the world, businesses like Twitter are woefully unprepared for the damage that extreme heat may do to the technology sector. In an August whistleblower statement, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the former head of security at Twitter, stated that “insufficient data centre redundancy” puts Twitter at risk. He cautioned that Twitter might be offline “for weeks, months, or indefinitely” due to “a temporary but overlapping outage of a small number of server centres.” It’s possible that the company is even less prepared for heat waves than previously, especially since Elon Musk recently acquired Twitter and let go of substantial portions of its workforce.
Heat waves: An intensifying IT problem
Businesses that rely significantly on IT services or that sell digital products can suffer serious damage from heat waves. Steve Wright, the 4D Data Centers’ chief operating officer, cautions that extreme weather conditions like high heat have the potential to “destroy IT systems and trigger power outages owing to overburdened power grids.”
According to Wright, businesses who neglect to maintain their data centres in the face of extreme temperatures risk “server failure, hard disc breakdowns, and data loss.” Any power outage, he continues, “may be fatal for a client, with crucial data files becoming distorted or deleted, mainframes breaking down, and money being lost when systems overheat.”
However, there are ways to deal with this mounting IT problem. Data centre operators can start by installing backup generators, which ensure that power supply is maintained in the event of an outage, according to Wright. By monitoring temperature and humidity, he continues, they can also increase the longevity of data centre servers and hard drives.
In order to combat overheating, Wright cites Microsoft’s successful testing of underwater data centres. The IT behemoth dubbed the idea “reliable and practical,” cutting down significantly on failure rates as compared to on-land data centres.
According to a 2021 survey on US-based data centres, which found that 45% of data centre owners and operators in charge of managing infrastructure at the largest IT organisations in the world said extreme weather had threatened their continuous operations, he says, “data centres must use high-energy cooling systems to combat rising temperatures.”
The cooling systems in data centres are the system’s weak links.
Although cooling systems are intended to keep data centre equipment from overheating, the truth is that they are ill-prepared to handle extreme heat waves. Compressors, pumps, fans, and other cooling equipment are put under stress by high temperatures, according to Daniel Bizo, research director of data centre think tank Uptime Institute Intelligence.
Without getting too scientific, mechanical refrigeration systems like air conditioners and water chiller systems are built around compressors, of which there are many different varieties. In order to produce a cooling effect, they employ electrical power to compress a gaseous coolant, which later expands (cooling coils exposed to ambient air or water) and cools down significantly.
In this instance, a pump is a device that distributes facility water (in a chilled water system) throughout the data centre as a coolant (cooled by the compressors in the water chillers) to dissipate heat from computer room air handlers, in-row cooling units, and other heat exchange devices. The likelihood of failure increases with more effort.
Sadly, cooling equipment isn’t the only important part of data centres that might be damaged by intense heat. According to Bizo, heat waves can also have an impact on external power sources and backup generators. If the grid has heat-related problems, this “may impair its ability to support the entire capacity of the data centre, if called upon.”
Despite the fact that in 2022 extreme heat caused substantial service disruptions at well-known internet businesses like Google, Oracle, and Twitter, there is still some optimism for the sector. Bizo claims that, with a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of data centres successfully weathered the summer’s “high temperatures” without experiencing any issues. “Adequate power and cooling redundancy and proper equipment maintenance hygiene,” he says, are to blame for this.
Additionally, the majority of data centres typically only operate at moderate levels of usage. Operators can use extra cooling capacity to deal with intense heat, he says. Contrarily, during extreme weather events, cloud providers are more likely to push their infrastructure closer to its limitations and have a smaller tolerance for error.
How to keep data centres cool during heatwaves
Data centre operators must strengthen their defences against this very real threat as heat waves become more frequent and devastating for the world’s technological infrastructure. Fortunately, Bizo is sure that there are several ways to lessen the effects of excessive heat.
Data centre owners might start by purchasing evaporative and adiabatic cooling solutions. Or they can add sprinkler systems to the already installed chillers and air conditioners.
As he explains, “Tolerating a few degrees warmer temperature in the data hall helps reduce the burden on cooling systems; if your system employs ambient air cooling solely (only cooled by outside air), an operator may wish to consider improving it with an evaporation effect.
“Misting air around the air conditioner’s or chiller’s cooling coils is one example. As long as the ambient air is not overly humid, cooling systems that are specifically designed to exploit evaporation (or the adiabatic effect, another physical phenomena that depends on water absorbed into air) can be used in new construction or large renovations.
But he asserts that implementing liquid-cooled IT systems would be “a more strategic, long-term answer” to the climate catastrophe. Additionally, liquid cooling of IT is beneficial since it enables higher cooling “chain” temperatures. This is due to the fact that liquid (water, engineered fluid), which is fed directly to the servers, can be 30+ C or even 40+ C in some circumstances, depending on implementation, as opposed to air, which must be supplied in the range of 18-27C per industry recommendation. This implies that a chilled water system, for example, can be built to deliver cooling water for data centres at 32C. This uses a significant amount less energy than, say, chilling to under 15C, which is usual in many implementations.
Uptime’s position is that data centre operators should conduct routine assessments to detect climate-related vulnerabilities and implement fixes before time runs out because they are already feeling the negative effects of heatwaves.
Bizo continues, “Addressing climatic resilience is a modern business priority as extreme weather events and other repercussions of climate change become more severe and prevalent.”
How to combat the heat in data centres
Although the IT sector is particularly susceptible to heat waves, there are plenty of technological remedies available.
In response to the high heat, CyrusOne, a supplier of worldwide data centres, has installed closed-loop chilled water systems and air-cooled chillers. They are a “energy-efficient technique of distributing chilled water to our equipment,” according to Kyle Myers, vice president of environmental health, safety, and sustainability at CyrusOne.
While other operators normally use tens of millions of gallons of water annually to cool each of their data centres, this system uses a loop that only needs to be filled once with less than 8,000 gallons of water. An integrated compressor and condenser cools this one-time source of water after that. Once the water is chilly, it can help to lower the data center’s interior temperature.
This method is beneficial to the environment and limits the harm that severe heat can do to crucial data centre equipment. Pollutants aren’t released from the data centre because it doesn’t require a constant water source or a sewage pipe.
According to Myers, “Facilities that depend on water for cooling might burn through a significant amount of water during these times to maintain cooling in data centres. We are not degrading water resources in the drought-stricken Phoenix region since, fortunately, our modern build standard uses water-free cooling, even though our overall electrical load may increase during this time.
Organizations may reduce increasing heat, though, without spending money on glitzy technologies like chilled-water systems, by making wiser choices. For instance, Kelly Fleming, CIO of Cirrus Nexus, advises businesses considering moving workloads to the cloud to pick data centre regions that utilise renewable energy.
“Servers that do not need to run continuously can be turned up and down when the energy consumption in their data centre region is at its cleanest, which might vary greatly depending on the energy sources powering it,” he adds as a recommendation.
Recent months have demonstrated how damaging heat waves may be to the world’s electronics sector. Technology companies are undoubtedly at a fork in the road as the heat wave shows no signs of abating. It is nearly probable that larger failures will occur if tech companies don’t monitor and mitigate excessive temperatures.
