Edge computing can be described as the concept of having compute and storage capacity physically close to where users are generating, consuming and manipulating data, says Jonathan Duncan, technical director, Africa at Vertiv.
By Jonathan Duncan, technical director, Africa at VertivJonathan Duncan, technical director, Africa, Vertiv.
However, these edge data centres must often share an area that’s already serving another purpose, and which may not have cooling systems intended to handle the IT equipment at the edge of the network.IT equipment can produce large amounts of heat on a continuous basis. Organisations must therefore take steps to ensure the proper cooling of that equipment in order to protect it and ensure its availability.
A typical office HVAC system could have a cooling capacity to deal with a heat load in the range of 50W to 100W per square metre, or perhaps 1kW to 2kW for an entire room. But a single rack of IT equipment may produce a heat load of 3kW to 4kW or more. As a result, a cooling system designed for 1kW of cooling could now be asked to deal with as much as four times that capacity.Employees may be uncomfortable as the comfort system struggles to maintain a target temperature.
Another issue with typical office buildings is humidity. With doors and potentially windows opening and closing all the time, humidity levels can change constantly, depending on conditions outside. This is not ideal for IT equipment. Similarly, dust does not facilitate the optimal functioning of IT equipment, which is why purpose-built data centres have air filtration systems that remove dust and other particulates from the air.
The reason is simple: these self-contained systems essentially seal off the IT equipment from the outside air, thus protecting it from dust and humidity, while enabling the company to tightly control the temperature of the racks.