DegreeC Offers Hot Spot Cooling Tool

Data center cooling specialist Degree Controls, Inc. (DegreeC) has introduced HotSpotr, a new system for cooling data center "hot spots" in high-density server environments. The system concentrates additional cooling in floor tiles located in front of a rack, and then uses an overhead ventilation system to return the hot air directly back to the CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioner).

"HotSpotr is a cooling solution with a brain," said Eric Birch, Executive Vice President of DegreeC. "HotSpotr fulfills easy-to-install server cooling in today's high performance data centers."

DegreeC is best known for its AdaptivCool data center cooling system, an "intelligent cooling system" that uses a network of temperature sensors and under-floor fans and vented floor tiles to provide precise management of air cooling within a data center. The temperature sensors send information to a thermal controller that calculates real-time cooling demand and dynamically controls the data center airflow. DegreeC can also conduct a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling analysis of an existing facility.

HotSpotr is a more focused solution, designed to address hot spots in one to three racks. The system is already in use at managed hosting provider NaviSite, Inc. (NAVI), which also uses AdaptivCool. "DegreeC continues to take the lead in the area of data center efficiency, helping to ensure that mission-critical facilities can handle their heat loads, allowing us to achieve higher levels of density within our data centers," said Jason Clark, Data Center Design Engineer at NaviSite.

"We believe we can effectively cool with air up to 20 kW per rack," Coy Stine, simulation engineer for AdaptivCool, said in a recent interview. "We're optimizing the airflow. The product itself is unique, but only part of the solution."

AdaptivCool has similarities to the approach taken by HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling, with an important difference: HP's solution won't be widely available until early in 2008, while AdaptivCool was launched last year and has 20 customer installations. Stine said AdaptivCool has "a payback period of less than a year."

DegreeC is a privately-held company based in Milford, New Hampshire, with additional facilities in India, China, Japan and Mexico, and employs approximately 100 people.