Daniel
Bizo
There are no commonly accepted best practices or standards to refer to when assessing the fire hazard that single-phase immersion fluids pose in a data center application and the appropriate measures against them.
Daniel Bizo
Over the past 15 years, Daniel has covered the business and technology of enterprise IT and infrastructure in various roles, including industry analyst and advisor. His research includes sustainability, operations, and energy efficiency within the data center, on topics like emerging battery technologies, thermal operation guidelines, and processor chip technology.
dbizo@uptimeinstitute.com
Latest Research
Immersion fluids hold promise, but fire risk a concern
Air cooling’s third wind
This report discusses recent innovations in air cooling, such as advanced evaporative cooling methods, AI-driven facility management and cutting-edge server heat sinks.
Anatomy of a thermal runaway
While the fire risk with lithium-ion batteries is widely understood, guidance on how best to mitigate it is still evolving. Controlling a Li-ion fire is difficult because of chemistry that creates the risk of thermal runaway.
The impact of AI on data center operations (Part I)
Max
Smolaks
John
O'Brien
This report outlines the characteristics of machine learning (ML) applications, describes production use cases for ML-based software in data center M&O, and profiles several vendors offering AI-based functionality in their products.
Capacity planning for liquid-cooled data centers
It is becoming a near certainty that many facility operators will use direct liquid cooling within a few years. This raises a number of engineering questions, one of which is how to size coolant distribution units.
Next-gen refrigerants: another environmental plight?
Jacqueline
Davis
Refrigeration’s history of progress is also a history of environmental concern. Whenever new refrigerants solve a problem, they create further crises down the line — and now history appears to be repeating itself.
Generative AI and global power consumption: high, but not that high
Andy
Lawrence
Preliminary calculations by Uptime Intelligence suggest the initial impact of generative AI on global data center power use is low — but it will rise quickly as adoption increases. How far generative AI will go remains unclear.
EU battery regulations: what do the new rules mean?
New EU legislation will raise recycling and reporting standards for batteries, regardless of chemistries. Although motivated by battery use in electric vehicles, the regulations also place obligations on data center operators.
Managing server performance for power: a missed opportunity
There is more to managing server power than just conserving energy when the machine is idle. Another side to optimizing energy performance involves setting processor performance levels appropriate for the application.
Air-assisted direct liquid cooling: an overlooked option
Air-assisted direct liquid cooling systems offer trade-offs that make them attractive to operators looking to address server cooling and rack density challenges — and are relatively easy to install and maintain.
Understanding how server power management works
Without the active contribution from IT, data center infrastructure energy performance and sustainability will fall short of aspirations. Server power management features remain unexplored and underused by most efficiency initiatives.
Five data center predictions for 2024
Douglas
Donnellan
Uptime Intelligence looks beyond the more obvious trends of 2024 and identifies some challenging issues. Strong IT demand, high-density IT systems and tough sustainability requirements will drive a new wave of investment.
Hunger for AI will have limited impact on most operators
Despite high expectations, most operators will only see moderate impact from specialized AI hardware installations in the immediate future. The emergence of AI as a major force will sway the industry in a more profound, but less direct, fashion.
Performance expectations of liquid cooling need a reality check
Thermal trends in server silicon will challenge assumptions that underpin efficiency and sustainability expectations around DLC. Limited visibility of future server cooling requirements means operators can only make an educated guess.
Resiliency considerations with direct liquid cooling
DLC promises attractive thermal performance and economics, but data center operators looking to adopt it will need to examine how they define and uphold their resiliency standard as product designs and resiliency guidance evolve.
