Experimental Analysis of Server Fan Control Strategies for Improved Data Center Air-based Thermal Management

This paper analyzes the prospects of a holistic air-cooling strategy that enables synchronisation of data center facility fans and server fans to minimize data center energy use. Each server is equipped with a custom circuit board which controls the fans using a proportional, integral and derivative (PID) controller running on the servers operating system to maintain constant operating temperatures, irrespective of environmental conditions or workload. Experiments are carried out in a server wind tunnel which is controlled to mimic data center environmental conditions. The wind tunnel fan, humidifier and heater are controlled via separate PID controllers to maintain a prescribed pressure drop across the server with air entering at a defined temperature and humidity. The experiments demonstrate server operating temperatures which optimally trade off power losses versus server fan power, while examining the effect on the temperature difference, ∆T. Furthermore the results are theoretically applied to a direct fresh air cooled data center to obtain holistic sweet spots for the servers, revealing that the minimum energy use is already attained by factory control. Power consumption and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) are also compared, confirming that decreasing the PUE can increase the overall data center power consumption. Lastly the effect of decreased server inlet temperatures is examined showing that lower inlet temperatures can reduce both energy consumption and PUE.