Feng Shui and the Art of the Data Center

I am in the midst of designing a new data center for a client and have been trying to balance the requirements of costs, space limitations, maximum number of cabinets and the flexibility to meet the rising and ever-changing power density of the IT equipment loads. Of course, high energy efficiency is a given. In addition, the client is especially concerned about esthetics and how it will look when a visitor enters the room.

My wife was reading a book on Feng Shui and suggested that I begin to incorporate it into my thinking. Not having enough time to become a Feng Shui master by the project’s deadline, I did some quick reading and found this definition:

Feng Shui is an ancient art of placement to bring balance and harmony to a physical space. The loose translation of Feng Shui is 'wind and water.' Feng represents the wind that carries the chi (energy) throughout a space. Shui is the water that meanders underneath the earth transporting chi.

And while I don’t think that they had a data center in mind when Feng Shui was first introduced hundreds of years ago, I found a strong parallel to the data center’s infrastructure in the definition. The three elements that are mentioned, wind (airflow), water (chilled water) and energy (power), all apply to the operation of a data center and of course, we also want to bring “balance and harmony to a physical space”.

So with those thoughts in mind, I began to look at the design with a fresh eye. The space is in an existing office building (never an ideal spot), but many organizations need to operate this way, so it was my task to provide a design that fits into a less-than-perfect space, yet fully supports the client’s IT requirements.

In this case they wanted to be able to efficiently support 50 cabinets at different and changing power densities ranging from 2-20 KW per cabinet. So first to the “Feng” (the wind that carries the chi/energy throughout a space). In this case the “energy” is heat. Since the airflow requirements are quite different at 2 KW per cabinet then at 20 KW, the cooling is based on a hybrid design consisting of conventional raised floor with perforated tiles and perimeter CRAHs (computer room air handler) to support the 2-5KW cabinets. In addition, there will be close-coupled cooling via Inrow Cooling units to support the 5-20KW cabinets. 

Now as to the “Shui" (the water that meanders underneath), the entire data center will be cooled via chilled water fed under floor. The chilled water will be provided by redundant multiple modular packaged chillers, each with multi-staged compressors, so that the system can operate efficiently at virtually any load from 15-150 tons. In addition, to be in “harmony with nature” this will be a closed loop, air cooled system, so it will not use any water and is equipped with a large dry cooler array that will allow “free cooling” even at moderate temperatures.

My only remaining challenge is the impressive view as you enter the data center (let’s face it, after a while all the rows of cabinets begin to look alike).  So my choices are a “Shui” fountain, enclosed in a giant glass globe, though which the chilled water gushes to the top and then flows to the under floor piping, along with some large wind chimes being swayed by the “Feng," or a large monitor displaying the real-time Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), and like some displays in hybrid cars, some green leaves growing when we get a low PUE. 

I am not sure if the glass-enclosed fountain and wind chime will get approved, but if it does it may start a new trend in data center design. So think about using Feng Shui to improve your data center’s “harmony” and perhaps its “chi” efficiency.