LIQUID GOLD?

Q

Please can you provide some background on Iceotope –
when/why formed and progress to date?
A
Iceotope was set up with the objective of making fans and air conditioning units obsolete. Spinning fans that push air over electronics is an incredibly inefficient way of removing heat and liquid cooling has long been seen as a winning alternative.
The problem has always been developing a liquid cooling system that actually works and will have big server farm operators willing to use it. I believe we’ve cracked this nut with Iceotope.
The idea behind Iceotope first formed in 2005, when I was studying the history of liquid cooling used in old equipment in the 70’s and 80’s such as the Cray 2 supercomputer. I was interested in making a modern version that met the needs of a modern server user.

Immersion cooling has had its issues in the past, whether using lots of energy to pump primary coolant or by degradation during the boiling of coolant in a phase change system. During our experimentation we discovered the convective cell used in Iceotope’s technology and filed patents – this eliminates the need for pumping primary coolant and solves problems previously associated with phase change.
Q
In broad terms, what are the USPs that differentiate Iceotope in
the data centre market?
A
Total Liquid Cooling is definitely Iceotope’s USP. And it’s what sets our technology apart, that’s for sure. Most data centres still use air to cool and you’ll find fans in the vast majority of liquid cooling systems too. That’s not the case with Iceotope, there are no fans involved at all. In fact, no additional infrastructure is required, no CRAC units, no chiller systems, no raised floors. This improves density, flexibility and TCO in a remarkable way as so called ‘essential’ data centre equipment simply isn’t needed. Indeed, an Iceotope data centre looks nothing like a traditional facility.

Q
In more detail, what is liquid cooling, and how does it work?
A
Liquid cooling is about moving heat with liquids rather than air – as liquids are thousands of times more efficient at transporting heat. There are three different types of liquid cooling:
 Indirect Liquid Cooling: where liquid is taken to an air-liquid heat exchanger in the row or in the cabinet. Fans then draw air through the heat exchanger and the servers
 Direct Liquid Cooling: where liquid is taken direct to key components inside of the server and air is used to cool other components (either with traditional air cooling or Indirect Liquid Cooling)
 Total Liquid Cooling: where airflow is no longer required and almost all heat is captured directly into liquid. Often insulation is used to reduce heat capture into air.
Q
What are the benefits when compared to more conventional air
cooling?

A
All liquid cooling technologies offer better efficiency and/or density than traditional air cooling, Total Liquid Cooling also has the benefit of reducing air-related infrastructure and thus it can be installed into much lower cost environments than traditional data centres.
And what is the liquid cooled solution that Iceotope offers?
Iceotope is a Total Liquid Cooling technology, it features zero airflow through the servers and thus offers a high density, high efficiency solution that makes about as much noise as a fridge and could be installed into office or logistics spaces rather than expensive data centres.
Q
Specifically, what are the attributes of the Iceotope Cabinet?

A
The Iceotope cabinet offers dual redundant liquid cooling paths and redundant pumps. The coolant has three levels of isolation, Blade, Cabinet and Building – which naturally isolates faults resulting in scalability. The Iceotope Cabinet cools 48 blade slots with a 108W pump – rather impressive efficiency. The Iceotope cabinet can deliver 50C heat and accept building coolant at up to 45C.
Q
And those of the Iceotope Blades?

A
Iceotope blades offer high speed connectivity, dual xeon processors and SSD based storage. They deliver a user experience that the company consider as “hot swap, clean and dry”
Q
What are the power savings offered by the Iceotope design?

A
The power savings are substantial. Cooling costs will be up to 97 percent less as compared to traditional air-cooled systems and this translates to overall power savings of around 50 percent.
Q
Can you tell us a little bit about some of Iceotope’s partners
and how they contribute towards the development of you
technology and solutions?

A
Iceotope has some amazing partners. We announced our $10m funding round at the start of the year and, on top of this, new strategic partnerships with Schneider Electric and Solvay – industry giants that are making a huge difference to the development of the company, its technology and its brand.
Q
What are the company’s routes to market – exclusively via
these partners, or do you use some kind of Channel model
as well?

A
We’re keeping our options open here. We’re interested in direct and indirect sales, including licensing.
Q
What are your plans to increase your market coverage?

A
Ultimately, Iceotope intends to sell via a licensing model whereby technology vendors pay for a licence to manufacture and sell Iceotope compatible technology.
Q
What is the roadmap to further develop your technology/
product portfolio?

A
We’d expect to make some big announcements in this regard before the end of the year, so expect to see a new Iceotope unit in the near future.
Q
Turning to more general industry issues, what are your
thoughts on the whole sustainable IT/green data centre
movement? And do you think that there are sufficient, and
good, standards out there to help end users achieve the
green ‘goal’?
A
This is a tricky one. Efficiency standards play an important role in making data centre professionals consider energy use and efficiency. The problem arises when these standards are gamed. Take PUE for example, it doesn’t take into account internal fans, which can actually consume a lot of power. It means that data centre vendors and operators can run highly inefficient data centre facilities, which still have great PUE figures. This is far from ideal of course.
Q
Specifically, do you have any thoughts on initiatives such
as The Green Grid, the EU Code of Conduct, the Climate
Change Agreement for data centres and the like?
A
The Climate Change Agreement is a step in the right direction and will help make the UK data centre industry more competitive. It’s hard to argue with the concept, nor the desired results, and I think everyone would agree that increasing energy efficiency in the data centre industry is a good thing.
Schemes like the Climate Change Agreement are proof that the data centre industry has recognised to the emissions problem. The most important task for data centre operators now is utilising the best emerging energy efficiency technologies, which will make reaching these efficiency targets possible.
Q
Can you give one or two examples of how Iceotope
technology is benefiting end users?

A
The Iceotope system at the University of Leeds is doing wonders for its end users. It’s an HPC facility, more specifically it’s a research laboratory, so it’s running complex algorithms throughout the day, crunching big numbers and helping the research team

go about its day-to-day business. The Iceotope system is doing this incredibly efficiently and, because it’s connected to the central heating system, is actually helping heat the facility in the winter months.
The system is virtually silent so it’s also helping the team by the simple fact that it doesn’t deafen them, as most systems would if located inside a busy lab.
Q
For those organisations looking to move towards the optimum
energy efficient data centre, what one or two pieces of advice
would you give them?

A
1. Stop using fans to cool your IT. It’s as simple as that.
2. Make sure you have an accurate picture of how efficient your facilities are. It’s great to have a good PUE figure, but if you’re using lots of energy by the way of additional and unnecessary infrastructure, it’s a massive waste and you’ll see this reflected in your energy bills.