Re: Cost Justifications -- MIDRANGE-L

As Jim mentioned it's truly air cooled but the air is cooled by three stages of water.

1) Water from a tank connected in front of our water heater is circulated through a heater core which hangs directly above the back of the racks. This heats that tank from 55 (well temp) to about 90 degrees.

2) Our water heater is a heat pump unit that draws hot air from the ceiling, chills it, and tosses that cool are onto the floor at the front of the racks. The heat is dumped into the water heater tank.

When 1 and 2 are not enough 'cool' then well water (55 degrees) is circulated through a large radiator at the ceiling and the hot air is then dumped through it thus cooling it down. It then is dumped at the floor. In the winter this radiator is only for emergency cooling as most of the remaining heat is dumped into our family room through a furnace duct.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

On 3/9/2011 12:54 PM, DeLong, Eric wrote:

So you have water cooling on Frankie? How did you manage that?

-Eric DeLong

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DrFranken
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:04 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Cost Justifications

OK I wrote a certification question on the ratio between input power and

output heat and got booed off the stage. SO I will simply tell you the
answer. For each KW of input power (1000 Watts) you will get 3413 BTU of

heat output. Now since a teeny tiny little bit of that 1000 watts went
into creating LED light (a VERY teeny bit) and some into noise generated

by the fans you might get a measly 3410 BTU of heat. Point is that it's

a straight line relationship between input power and output heat. It's
fairly common for HVAC guys who know there stuff to ask what the total
power input to the data center is, what the percentage load on the UPS
is, and use that number as a basis for calculating cooling requirements.

If you put 100KVA IN you will need to get 341,300 BTU out somehow.

Now how much electricity it takes to remove those BTUs can vary A LOT.
In very cold climates, outdoor air can be drawn through filters to cool
the place (devices called 'economizers') and that's cheap. In hot
climates very large amounts of A/C are used to cool such rooms and that
cost can rival the power of the systems being cooled. In the FrankenLab

from about October through March 100% of the heat generated is turned
into domestic hot water and then heat for the house. In the summer it
ends up in the swimming pool or down a dry well. Very economical indeed.

- Larry 'DrFranken' Bolhuis

On 3/8/2011 6:09 PM, Evan Harris wrote:

What's the heat differential ? And the power requirement for the
cooling equipment to handle it ? :)

As you've pointed out the OP should also consider the maintenance and
license costs if any of keeping an existing machine versus upgrading
as this is often a simpler sell to management as it's a direct cost.

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 9:45 AM, DrFranken<midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Well the 720 and the 250 are about a wash in 'spec power' at 750 amd

782

watts respectively. That said, what you GET for those watts is a

little

different. The biggest 250 was 75 (Seventy five!) CPW (20

interactive)

while the teeeeeeniest 720 is nearly 6,000 CPW (one core) and as much

as

46,300 with all eight cores going. So a one core 720 is equal to

Eighty

250s in CPU capability. IN practice I would expect the 720 to draw

far

less than that and I measured a 2-core system with 6 drives closer to
100 Watts with IBM i 7.1 simply idling. (No user work at the time.)

The 720 also comes with a 3 year warranty so you drop maintenance

cost.

I also did a comparison of a POWER5 550 to a POWER7 750 and the ratio
there is 100 to 1 on power per CPW. That is the 750 generates 100

times

more CPW per input Watt than a 550! That's a lot of savings!

- Larry