WEST KINGSTON, R.I. — Schneider Electric has announced the launch of EcoAisle™, what the company calls an intelligent thermal containment system that increases data center cooling efficiency while protecting critical IT equipment and data center personnel. The EcoAisle system, compatible with almost any type of rack or cooling deployment, supports both hot and cold aisle containment and offers enhanced flexibility and safety, said the company.

“Cooling is a significant operational cost in the data center and can be a drain on resources for many organizations,” said Joe Capes, business development director, cooling, Schneider Electric IT Business. “EcoAisle offers energy savings through improved cooling capacity, increased flexibility to meet evolving and future needs of the organization as well as important safety features not found in other solutions. This new intelligent cooling system meets virtually all application needs, rack types, and configurations for flexible and efficient deployment in a variety of operating conditions.”

The EcoAisle system features Active Flow Control, which intelligently monitors airflow balance between the cooling system and IT equipment and adjusts cooling system fan speed automatically to right-size airflow based on IT load. This can result in up to a 50 percent reduction in fan energy usage over conventional cooling, said Schneider Electric.

In addition, EcoAisle provides a safe environment for IT equipment and personnel with a fire safe system that detects thermal events and provides full access to sprinklers at the room level, as well as safe slide doors that allow quick exit in case of emergency.

Additional features and benefits include:

• Flexibility enabled by EcoAisle’s support for various aisle widths, rack heights, rack depths, and single rows. The system also supports hot and cold aisle containment.

• A centralized hot air return system for room and external air handling systems which minimizes obstruction of lighting into the ducted aisle, and provides cable access from within the contained aisle. Removable sealed access panels allow for quick and easy access for routing power and network cabling.

For more information, visit the APC by Schneider Electric website at www.apc.com.

Publication date: 10/7/2013

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