DTC Manchester

The Data Centre Alliance, Datacentre Solutions Magazine and The University of Leeds Data Centre are pleased to bring you the fourth Datacentre Transformation Conference (DTC14) to take place on July 8th, 2014. This year, DTC14 will be

in Manchester, UK – home to the world’s first stored-program computer back on
June 1948.

The series of Data Centre Transformation International Conferences has developed into an event in the North of England with a unique flavour within the data centre industry, supporting a strong engagement of academic research with industrial developments. This year DTC14 will have a range of industrial and academic presentations, with a particular emphasis on efficiency, reliability and sustainable growth of this incredibly important industry to human society.

In addition to the new technologies, research and development there will be sessions showcasing EU funded projects.

The conference technical committee is lead by Dr Jon Summers and his colleagues Professors Harvey Thompson and Nik Kapur, all from the Institute of Thermofluids, School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, who have been pioneering a number of research projects that involve the operation of data centres, the cooling technology supplied to the industry and energy consumption and efficiency of data centres.

The technical conference committee will publish the full programme on 28th April 2014. Even though the call for papers has now closed, the committee is open to the submission of any strong research and development papers before this date. Please email info@dtconference.com with speaker details, title and summary.

For more information about DTC14 visit:

www.dtconference.com

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The conference has two keynote speakers:

Don Beaty (DLB Associates, USA)
On the topic of:
“Case Studies: Innovative Data Centre Designs using ASHRAE’s Design Guidelines”, which is summarised in the following paragraphs:

Prior to the first release of ASHRAE’s groundbreaking Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments publication in 2004, data centre designs were high cost and high PUE. The publication was the first truly vendor neutral consensus on data centre design parameters having been established by the collaborative efforts of the major IT OEMs, and the data centre facilities design and operations industry within ASHRAE TC9.9’s membership.

Since that first publication, ASHRAE has released two major updates to those design parameters in response to the industry call for increased energy efficiency / lower PUEs. In the latest edition, the IT OEMs from ASHRAE TC9.9 once again delivered first of a kind data on higher Allowable Environmental temperature and humidity ranges and the relative failure rates of IT equipment at higher temperatures.

DLB Associates has designed a combined 4GW of data center critical capacity including eight Google data centre campuses and have extensive experience in the full spectrum of data centre designs from the traditional to bleeding edge innovative. This session will present case studies looking at the impact on capital, performance, and operational characteristics of data centres with varying implementations of the latest ASHRAE guidelines.

Dr Jeff Punch (Director of Stokes Institute, University of Limerick, Ireland)

On the topic of:

“The Influence of Temperature on Reliability in the Data Centre: the Weakest Link”, which is summarised in the following paragraphs:

Energy efficiency has become a critical factor in contemporary data centres which is driving tighter hardware integration, and leading to higher power densities at rack and facility level. In order to ensure reliable operation, increasingly aggressive thermal management techniques are being deployed to maintain control of component temperatures.

The relationship between temperature and reliability is, however, quite complex, and not amenable to simple guidelines. This presentation will consider the influence of environmental conditions on the reliability of data centre hardware – specifically, the effects of ambient temperature, temperature changes, humidity and even dust and pollutants. Strategies such as increased rack inlet temperatures and free-air cooling are examined from the perspective of their effects on reliability, and the associated implications for thermal management approaches.