Servers in boiling liquid: this is Microsoft's idea to avoid heating their equipment
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When we talk about creating server farms necessary for cloud processing, companies face different challenges: energy consumption on the one hand and prevent overheating of so many pieces of equipment together generating heat in unison."
At first, the option to avoid the heat may be to use air conditioning equipment or that is at least what the user on foot may think. But at Microsoft they go much further and if we have already seen how they have submerged data centers in the ocean, now they have decided to cool them with liquid, but not with low-temperature liquid, but with a liquid that cools them by boiling
Constant temperature at 50 degrees
It may seem like a contradiction when explained roughly like this. The process in question responds to the technology name of two-phase liquid immersion cooling A system that allows devices to be cooled much more efficiently than if air is used to the same purpose, since the liquid improves heat transfer.
With this system, the device in question is submerged in a liquid that does not damage the components and at the same time takes charge of collecting and mitigating the heat generatedA substance that, unlike the single-phase system where the liquid is cold, uses a boiling one.
When the liquid boils, a vapor is generated that, when it reaches a condenser, is transformed again into liquid that falls again in the form of rain, forming a closed circuit to maintain a constant temperature inside. The secret also lies in the substance used, a liquid created by 3M that reaches the boiling temperature of 50 degrees Celsius and does not damage electronic components.
For now it is a project in development and they are only testing it on an Azure server in Washington. Depending on the result, they will take this system to other locations. In addition, this system helps to solve the other problem mentioned at the beginning, energy consumption, because according to Microsoft allows savings of between 5% and 15% of energyfor any server.
More information | Microsoft
