Canary in a Coal Mine: Issues in Efficient Cooling of Data Centers

As the information technology market has commoditized computing, several significant changes have been underway. The continued growth of the size and number of data centers and the drive to reduce the operating costs of these data centers has resulted in greater use of outside air cooling. Design of IT equipment itself has changed for lower cost and for safer end of life disposal. All of these changes introduce risk of unexpected equipment failure due to corrosion, but proper design at both the IT equipment and HVAC levels can mitigate this risk.