Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment
ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9

If you would like to get involved in this TC's activities you can contact the appropriate Point of Contact in the TC 9.9 Work Items listing, attend the biannual meetings, or contact our committee chair at tc0909@ashrae.net.  In addition to this website, visit our LinkedIn page and follow us!

New! ASHRAE TC 9.9 Technical Bulletin on Liquid Cooling Resilience

The TC 9.9 committee is excited to release its latest technical bulletin! Compute workloads continue to push for faster, more powerful, more efficient chips resulting in extreme chip power, lower temperature requirements, and broader use of liquid cooling. The loss of cooling can be catastrophic when supporting extreme chip powers. This technical bulletin introduces the primary concerns and addresses both design and operation recommendations for ensuring resiliency.

 

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Provides Input to European Union Commission

The TC 9.9 team has provided a response to the EU's Committee for the Study for the review of Commission Regulation 2019/424 (Ecodesign of Servers and Data Storage Products) Task 6 Design Options – Draft June 2024. See the response letter here.

 

TC 9.9 Indianapolis Summer Hybrid Meeting

Handbook Applications Chapter 20 Revision Assignment Chart

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia

The TC 9.9 team is excited to announce the availability of the ASHRAE TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia.  The ASHRAE TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia evolved in 2024 from the longstanding ASHRAE Datacom Series, a series of printed books that provides information on data center related subjects.

The Datacom Encyclopedia offers updated, previously unpublished content formerly covered by the Datacom Series books Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments, Design Considerations for Datacom Equipment Centers, and Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers, as well as PDFs of every edition of the 14 books in the ASHRAE Datacom Series for historical reference. Over time, the pertinent information from all the books will transition to be housed in this online encyclopedia.

Subscribe today to access the ASHRAE TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia. Access is granted via payment of an annual fee ($33 list price per year / $24 Member price per year). To enable and disable access to the encyclopedia, visit https://datacom.ashrae.org and click Manage Subscription in the top blue bar. Users can review ASHRAE’s privacy policy at www.ashrae.org/privacy-policy. 

Updates Available on the TC 9.9 Datacom Encyclopedia 
Design Considerations for Datacom Equipment Centers
The content previously covered in Design Considerations for Datacom Equipment Centers has been almost entirely rewritten to reflect the current trends in the data center industry. Every chapter has had major revisions. The content included on this site provides expanded and new information covering the following topics:

• Design criteria, HVAC loads, HVAC equipment, facility fluid distribution systems, air distribution, liquid cooling, ancillary spaces, contamination, acoustics, structural and seismic design, fire suppression, commissioning, availability and reliability, energy efficiency, and economizers.

Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers
The content previously covered in Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers has been almost entirely rewritten to include the most current industry thinking and consensus on the need for further guidance on liquid cooling. The content included on this site provides expanded and new information, including the following:

1. 1. A discussion on the IT component power trends that are driving the need for liquid cooling to support the next generation of IT workloads. 
2. 2. Introduction of a new set of environmental classes (S Classes) for the supply temperature of the Technology Cooling System (TCS) coolant.
3. 3. Expanded treatment of the differences in fluid quality requirements for the TCS and FWS loops. 
4. 4. Details on the design characteristics of conductive cold-plate and immersion cooling systems. 
5. 5. Design guidance is added for air-cooled facilities that are being upgraded to support liquid-cooled IT equipment. 

 

TC 9.9 2024 Chicago Winter Hybrid Meeting

2024 Winter Hybrid Main Meeting Presentation
2024 Winter Hybrid Meeting: Programs, Research & Publications Presentation
Handbook Applications Chapter 20 Revision Assignment Chart

TC 9.9 2023 Tampa Summer Hybrid Meeting

2023 Summer Hybrid Main Meeting Presentation
2023 Summer Hybrid Meeting: Programs, Handbook & Research Presentation
All presentations can also be found under "Presentations" in the Documents section of this website.

TC 9.9 Publications of Interest

Emergence and Expansion of Liquid Cooling in Mainstream Data Centers White Paper
The IT industry is at a performance inflection point. When purchasing a new computing device, it is expected to be more powerful than the previous generation. As for servers, over the last decade the industry had a period where significant performance increases were delivered, generation over generation, accompanied by modest and predictable power increases. That period ended around 2018. Large power increases in the compute, memory, and storage subsystems of current and future IT equipment are already challenging data centers, especially those with short refresh cycles. The challenges will only increase. Liquid cooling is becoming a requirement in some cases, and should be strongly and quickly considered. This white paper explains why liquid cooling should be considered, rather than the details around what liquid cooling is or how to deploy it.

Cold Weather Shipping Acclimation and Best Practices
This white paper addresses the prevention of damage to sensitive IT equipment caused by cold weather shipping conditions, providing additional guidance for shipping IT equipment that is not covered in the latest edition of Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments. In addition to outlining cold weather shipping practices and packaging for various modes of transportation, this white paper covers acclimation time guidelines for both large equipment such as racks, cabinets, and frames and smaller field-replaceable components such as disk drives, PCIe cards, and memory modules.

Edge Computing: Considerations for Reliable Operation Technical Bulletin
This technical bulletin highlights the environmental and reliability challenges of edge data centers and the design and maintenance challenges of these data centers that are surrounded by semi-controlled or even uncontrolled external environments.  You can find this bulletin here along with other TC 9.9 publications.

Data Center and IT Equipment Design Guidance from ASHRAE TC 9.9 for Engineers, IT Professionals, and Facility Staff
ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 will present design guidance for Engineers, IT Professionals and Facility Staff at a one day educational course in Lisbon on November 20, 2019.  It is the first time ASHRAE’s full day design course has been presented in Europe. The new ASHRAE course explains how IT services that are lower cost, more energy efficient, provide more storage, and offer more computing capabilities impact operating conditions with a focus on ASHRAE’s evolving thermal guidelines for data processing environments. The course targets facility managers and IT professionals responsible for data center operation, executives and engineers who offer data center services to clients, suppliers and sales engineers whose equipment is used to cool data center spaces, and engineers who work on projects requiring ASHRAE TC 9.9 design specifications.

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Hard Disk Drive Performance Degradation Susceptibility to Acoustics White Paper
This white paper serves to educate the data center community on the risks to hard disk drive (HDD) throughput performance from acoustics created by AMDs running at high speeds to adequately cool components within the racks. The methods used to optimize data center total cost of ownership (TCO) need to include these performance risks that can impact customer applications.

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Water-Cooled Servers White Paper
TC 9.9 has released a new white paper entitled "Water-Cooled Servers: Common Designs, Components, and Processes." With more water-cooled IT products arriving in the marketplace, TC 9.9 felt the need to outline some of the common processes, parts, and materials for focus in use for future water-cooled designs. This white paper also corrects misunderstandings in the latest edition of Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers, and provides guidance for avoiding common mistakes based upon the book’s content. Much of the content in this white paper will be incorporated into a future third edition. 

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Liquid Cooling White Paper
TC 9.9 has released a new white paper entitled "The Advancement of Liquid Cooling Solutions: The Perfect Storm Brewing" which addresses the growing trend of liquid cooling solutions in the data center. This brief is a window into a more comprehensive TC 9.9 white paper to be released later this year.

ASHRAE TC 9.9 Overview Presentation
As committed at the Orlando meeting, the overview presentation for TC 9.9 has been updated and is now available on this site.  This overview can be used by members to understand what TC 9.9 does and the resources available from TC 9.9.  Please consider this as ASHRAE’s material and always follow appropriate use considerations.

TC 9.9 Approved Definitions for Data Centers, ITE, and ITE Enclosures
TC 9.9 is recognized as a leader in driving the data center environmental knowledge and best practices in the industry. At the ASHRAE Annual Meeting in Orlando, TC 9.9 discussed one area where we must help to align our industry. Previously TC 9.9 has not provided definitions for ITE and locations where it is housed. It is essential that we do this to meet our mission "To be recognized by ALL areas of the datacom industry as the unbiased engineering leader in HVAC and an effective provider of technical information for the datacom industry."

It is important for data centers to be excluded from codes written for human occupancy. Even an IT server rack does NOT fit human occupancy codes. Racks that belong in human occupancy codes are ones supporting building services such as fire, security, HVAC, audio / video, etc. These racks are typically far less than 2 KW per rack. There might be occasional exceptions but those are minor compared to human occupancy codes requiring economizers on 2 KW IT server racks.

TC 9.9 has approved the following definitions for use by those needing to quantify data center related terms. Please consider them as the position of TC 9.9 as we move forward in developing standards, codes and general communications for our industry.

1) Data Center: A room or building, or portions thereof, with one or more ITE enclosures greater than 2 KW.
2) Information Technology Equipment (ITE): Computers, data storage, servers and network / communication equipment.
3) ITE Enclosure: A rack, cabinet, or chassis that is designed to mount ITE.

ASHRAE Bookstore
A bulk quantity discount for the Datacom Series Products applies to purchases of 10 or more copies of one title or any combination of titles.

Quantity discounts are available for purchases of 10 or more books (mix & match). Please contact the Manager of Inventory and Subscriptions for instructions on receiving your discount.

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