RESEARCH PAPER: Dell’s Liquid Cooling Innovation for Scale-Out Datacenter Environments

Achieving the best total cost of ownership (TCO) requires delivery of the highest possible performance at the lowest possible cost. For CPU-intensive workloads, this generally means operating the CPU at the highest achievable frequency. Heat generated by the CPU is usually the key limiter. Dell’s Extreme Scale Infrastructure (ESI) group has been working with hyperscale customers on customized liquid cooling for more than 6 years via their Data Center Solutions (DCS) team. Under the codename of ‘Triton’, Dell’s third generation liquid cooling innovation has the ability to cool CPUs with performance and power that has been almost impossible to achieve before. You can download the paper here.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
What is Old is New Again: The Return of Liquid Cooling
Cooling System Evolution on the Path to Efficiency
Standard Cooling Systems Today
Liquid Cooling Provides Advantages for Some Environments
Dell ‘Triton’: Multiple Generations of Liquid Cooling Innovation
First Generation of ‘Triton’
Second Generation of ‘Triton’
Third Generation of ‘Triton’
‘Triton's’ Design Simplicity Helps Drive Efficiency
Projecting the Future of Dell's ‘Triton’
Call to Action
Figure 1A: Typical IT Cooling Using a Computer Room Air Conditioner (CRAC)
Figure 1B: Typical IT Cooling with Chilled Water Distribution Using a Computer Room Air Handler (CRAH)
Figure 1C: Centralized Chilled Water System with Rear Cooling Doors
Figure 1D: Centralized Chilled Water Hybrid System Sharing Chilled Water Supply
Figure 1E: Centralized Chilled Water Hybrid System Using a Localized Cooling Loop
Figure 2: Three Generations of ‘Triton’ Liquid Cooling Innovation from Dell
Figure 3: Dell ‘Triton’ in the Overall Datacenter
Figure 4: Dell ‘Triton’ Rack View
Table 1: PUE Drivers for Different Cooling System Methods