APC intros high-density overhead data center cooling system

Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane. No, actually it's a new overhead refrigerant cooling system from power management technology vendor APC by Schneider Electric.

The technology, called the InRow OA, works by capturing up to 27 kilowatts of hot air being expelled by your data center cooling equipment right at the source of the heat, according to APC. It then cools the air and discharges it back down into the IT rack area.

The other piece of the solution, the Refrigerant Distribution Unit (RDU) was designed with a refrigerant called R134a, which APC describes as a non-toxic substance with no ozone depletion potential. It avoided water because of the potential for leaks. (Not good if something is sitting above your server rack.) The unit makes use of variable speed fans and it is modular to accommodate different density requirements.

According to APC, the technology is up to 30 percent to 50 percent more efficient than your typical raised data center cooling option. It is specifically intended to help eliminate hot spots that can be caused by high-density implementations, as well as the need to retrofit existing data center facility designs.