Sustainability is a critical factor in data center design. The topic encompasses a series of design trade offs including: reliability, site selection, water usage, operating parameters, construction materials and cooling efficiencies. Due to a couple of key paradigm shifts in the industry, today’s data center owners and operators are looking to meet their cooling demands with air cooled solutions. All this needs to be done in conjunction with optimizing energy efficiency leading to a significant change in HVAC system products and design.

In this conversation, Jeffrey Jerwers can discuss the trends driving the need for water conservation and associated equipment impact. He will detail the types of economizers available for mechanical cooling systems, application by climate zone and their associated design tradeoffs.

Data centers are complex, high-stakes environments where downtime is not an option. The sheer volume of interconnected systems and components creates a daunting challenge for operators. This is where digital twins shine.

Because of this complexity, data centers require a new level of understanding. Digital twins—virtual models fed by real-time DCIM data—can offer a transformative solution. The key is that the Digital Twin is only as good as accurate real-time data.

This continuous flow of real-time information allows operators to see the bigger picture, from power usage to equipment health. Imagine a live, digital replica predicting bottlenecks, optimizing cooling, and enabling proactive maintenance.

A digital twin can allow your data center to analyze your infrastructure, highlight potential issues, and provide highly accurate details on the impact of proposed changes − viewable as your monitored values change. Watch an ATS or PDU view with the power load that reflects your changing values and plan. Watch a power load peak during a fail-over with your plan changes applied to the real-time data.

Power management with digital twin capabilities can simulate the failure of a device or load change and accurately model the effects of that failure, including triggering failure over to redundant partners and cascade failures.

With a DCIM solution with digital twin capabilities, you gain insightful reporting that identifies potential risk areas in your infrastructure. For instance, it can flag power distribution gear that represents a single point of failure, which could lead to equipment de-energization and impact customers and SLAs. This proactive approach to risk management is a vital advantage of a DCIM solution with digital twin capabilities.

Imagine a planning module based on a digital twin model and its capabilities. It doesn't just show simple details like additional loads but also simulates complex scenarios. For instance, it can predict when a device will fail, reroute load in the virtual model to redundant partners, and show the effect on those devices as well. This comprehensive approach to planning is where a true digital twin adds much more value than a simple load addition or removal.

By using real-time DCIM data, digital twins become intelligent partners, ensuring peak performance and a more resilient data center.

While the idea of a digital twin for your data center has existed for a long time, operators now can have that digital twin fed by millions of data points per minute inside a full-fledged powerful DCIM. Our view is that anything less makes it just a "Digital Cousin".

We believe Modius ® OpenData® is the gateway to these next-gen capabilities and would love to use this podcast to kick off this effort.

As everyone on the Data Center Frontier and Endeavor Business Media (EBM) teams regroups from last week's sold-out DCF Trends Summit (Sept. 4-6) conference in Reston, Virginia, for today's episode of the DCF Show Podcast we bring you something a bit different.

Recorded earlier this year, EBM's Data Center, Communications, and Power Infrastructure Confluence Forum is a shared discussion among the lead editors of key brands and publications in EBM's Digital Infrastructure and Energy Groups.

The discussion frames and addresses the topic of rapidly expanding stakes and implications for the data center, information and communications technology (ICT), fiber broadband, and on-site power generation infrastructure sectors in the age of advanced computing and connectivity for AI/ML, IoT, 5G LTE, all flavors of Ethernet, and other pertinent technology applications.

EBM editors in order of their participation in this discussion include:

00:00 - 14:00 - Matt Vincent, Editor in Chief, Data Center Frontier 14:02 - 26:13 - Patrick McLaughlin, Editorial Director, Cabling Installation & Maintenance 26:13 - 33:51 - Joe Gilliard, Executive Editor, ISE | ICT Solutions & Education 33:52 - 42:11 - Sean Buckley, Editor in Chief, Lightwave and Broadband Pulse (podcast) 42:12 - 1:06 - Rod Walton, Chief Editor, Microgrid Knowledge

The discussion winds up with a bit of cross-questioning among the editors.

We at Data Center Frontier hope you'll enjoy this podcast, and will resume with our regular, data center industry-specific coverage later this month.