Blanking Panels Go All the Way

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Cary

Empty Racks Blanked Off with PolarFlex 42U Blanking Panels

More and more we see completely empty racks that need blanking. This makes sense as operators procure full rows of racks to either gain volume price advantages or because they are deploying containment and need completed rows to support their hot or cold aisle containment systems.

New, easy, economical way

Old, costly, painful way

The PolarFlex 42U Blanking Panel is an easy, fast, and cost effective way to seal empty racks or to fill large unoccupied spaces with in the rack. Learn more at www.polarflex.biz.

Call Polargy at 888-816-8338 to order.

San Jose Cold Aisle Containment Success

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Cary

Polargy installed Cold Aisle Containment with our Drop-Away Roof Panels and our new P2 Adjustable Height Sliding Door at a large data center in San Jose. Two San Jose Fire Marshal reviews were required before they gave their approval as the Drop-Away Panels were new to them. These are Polargy’s unique containment roof panels that are designed for use below sprinkler heads.

Below is a series of great pictures of this attractive installation.

P2 Sliding Door

Inside The Cold Aisle

The Drop-Away Panel Roof

Standard Panel for Missing Rack

Drop-Away Panel Close Up

P2 Sliding Door Video

The site owner had a Monitor & Control system installed prior to the containment installation. The system showed that the Cold Aisle Containment yielded an energy savings of 146,000kWh annually.

San Diego Gets Hot

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Cary

We recently finished a new construction Hot Aisle Containment project for a health care company in San Diego. We worked with a Design/Build firm who prepared the below plans.

Plan View Drawings for Hot Aisle Containment Layout

Polargy created shop drawings from these plans to prepare a material list and installation instructions.

Shop Drawing of Hot Aisle Containment

The finished project looks great.

San Diego Hot Aisle Containment

Here is another view.

San Diego Hot Aisle Containment Corner View

Quick Wins Are Always Nice

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Cary

“I just thought I’d let you know that we got the Polargy doors and top panels installed today, and saw an immediate drop of about 8-10 F in the cold aisle.”

Cold Aisle Containment

?#@*&%! Side-to-Side Air

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Cary

We all continue to struggle with containing “side-to-side” air on the 6500s. We stumbled upon this fix last year in San Jose, CA. The owner reports sufficient air supply with this simple hose and manifold set up.

Cold Air Piped into Cisco 6500s

Is that my dryer exhaust hose?

Here is a little less sophisticated approach on a newer switch at a site in New Jersey.

HP Launches New Air Containment Product

Canada Keeps Cool

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Cary

In 2011 Polargy installed a Cold Aisle Containment System for the Government of Canada. Below is a note and photos from the Data Center Manager who is a very satisfied customer.

————————————————————-

Good Morning Cary,

I only have good things to say about your product. It solved our cooling issues in a snap!!!

We only went with your product after studying all alternative. One main feature of your product is the simplicity of the system and the ease to work with it during installation (minutes) and when maintenance have to be perform in the Data Center where the top panels have to be moved around. It proved such a success with all our staff. For the one concern about aesthetic, well the design is pretty slick if you ask me.

I don’t have the official tally from the CRAC units but my first investigation show that we are now saving more then 50% from our past cooling needs.

As we continue our expansion, you will hear from us in the future

Sincerely

Louis Hall

Moncton Data Centre / Centre Informatique de Moncton
Infrastructure Services / Services d’infrastructure
Innovation, Information and Technology / Innovation, information et technologie
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada / Ressources humaines et Développement des compétences Canada
Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada

Government of Canada Cold Aisle Containment

Government of Canada Inside Cold Aisle Containment Pod

It’s Cold in Jamaica

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Cary

Power is expensive in the Caribbean so data center efficiency is all the more important. Modern Power and Cooling Technology Limited successfully designed and implemented a cold aisle containment solution at the state of the art tier 3 Digicel Collocation Facility at Caymans using Polargy’s Aisle Containment System with the one of a kind “drop away” panel. A few classic site conditions were columns down the aisles, uneven aisle ends, and a single sided aisle. What is most impressive is that the design was done locally by Modern Power and they installed the system with no difficulties.

Cold Aisle Roof

Inside the isolated cold aisle

Go to Modern’s Press Release to see more details.

Xcel Energy’s $169,000 Rebate Check

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Cary

What a great outcome, the CFO must be thrilled.

Xcel energy rebate check for containment project

Big Fat Rebate Check

This cold aisle containment project enjoyed pure simplicity.

The site, near Denver, was purpose built so Xcel Energy could just take a before and after meter reading for the entire building. The IT load did not really change over the course of the project, so the reduction was attributed to the shutting off of 39 CRAC units out of 70 units running. This reduction was measured at 435kW, or about 11kW per CRAC unit. These CRAC units were the old AirFlow brand and the per unit reduction was higher than anticipated but we double checked the meter readings and verified the constant IT load (via the UPS) to confirm the numbers.

Old Airflow CRAC Badge

The containment was a combination of cold aisle containment, under floor partitions, and CRAC unit extensions. PUE before was 2.0, after it was 1.8.

Polargy helped calculate the ROI. The project’s net costs were $400K ($569K less $169K). The 435kW savings yielded $225K annually (power rate is about 6 cents per kWh). This results in a project payback period of 1.6 years.

Vanderbilt Shows Off at AFCOM

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Cary

Vanderbilt contributed to the AFCOM event with a tour of its latest energy savings efforts in its Nashville data center. The university installed Polargy’s Cold Aisle Containment System on one of its newly installed aisles. 73 people toured through the site and experienced the containment system as shown below.

Our friend Jeff showing how the sliding door works:

Taking a peak inside the contained cold aisle. The site has a glass brick wall which is illuminating the wall above the CRAC unit, a neat look.

Inside the Aisle

Pixar’s “Ridiculous” ROI on Cold Aisle Containment

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Cary

Jay (now at Twitter) presented Pixar’s results from Polargy’s Cold Aisle Containment installation. This is a simple and compelling story on containment’s ease of implementation and rapid ROI.

The Containment Chronicles

Experiences in hot and cold aisle containment