Managing Servers In the Frigid Cold

1sockchuck writes "Some data centers are kept as chilly as meat lockers. But IT operations in colder regions face challenges in managing conditions — hence Facebook's to use environmentally controlled trucks to make deliveries to its new data center in Sweden, which is located on the edge of the Arctic Circle. The problem is the temperature change in transporting gear. 'A rapid rate of change (in temperature) can create condensation on the electronics, and that's no good,' said Facebook's Frank Frankovsky."

Comments

From Minnesota here

[onyxruby]

This isn't anything new, anytime you take something from the extreme cold and bring it inside you risk condensation. This is usually dealt with by simply letting something sit at room temperature for several hours before powering it on.

In the middle of January if you take a freezing cold delivery and power it on right away and fry your new (XXXXXX) you deserve to void your warranty. There is no excuse for stupidity. Why is this on slashdot as news?

Re:From Minnesota here

[prakslash]

Why is this on slashdot as news?

So you can get a taste of the luxuries you can afford after a 100 billion dollar IPO. Why wait a few hours before powering up you equipment when you can transfer it using expensive, climate-controlled trucks. At Facebook, even lifeless plastic and metal rides in style on the gravy train.

Re:From Minnesota here

[vlm]

Oh I thought of another one. The problem has nothing to do with temperature. The problem is when the indoor/outdoor/dew points intersect which happens all the time, not just when its cold.

One excruciatingly humid summer day I was hauling around a protocol analyzer worth about as much as my car, and it cold soaked in front of the car air conditioner duct cooling itself to 40 degrees or whatever the AC output is, then it was dripping condensed water as I carried it into the customer premises, an un-airconditioned factory floor. So I'm sitting there doing nothing and explaining to the customer how I have to do nothing, until the test set dries off because its too cold (customer VP looks out window at blue sky 110 degree day). Yes that was an unpleasant meeting.

Re:From Minnesota here

[petermgreen]

Even if you do have the ability to artificially raise or lower the humidity that doesn't mean it makes sense to keep it at the same level all year round.

Most electronics is specified for quite a wide range of relative humidity. Usually 5% to 95% or so.

In winter you want low relative humidity to reduce the risk of condensation on stuff brought in from outside (yeah you try to seal stuff and let it warm up before unwrapping but mistakes and emergencies happen). It's also cheap to achieve low relative humidity due to the low outside air temperature (for a given absoloute humidity relative humidity goes down as temperature goes up).

In summer humidity doesn't matter so much since stuff brought in from outside will be warm. It's also likely to be more expensive to achieve low relative humidity since it involves active dehumidification (which is achieved by cooling the air to the point where the water condenses out)

Try -68 F Room Temperature

[Isbjorn]

This is nothing--years ago I deployed PCs at Alaskan oilfield installations. Extreme cold makes everything brittle, kept having problems with things like cracked motherboards, just from setting the PC on a desk.

In Canada, Nokia DSLAM's Overheat!

[N1zaam]

A few years back while doing Tier 2 level support for a major Canadian telco, I started seeing overheating alarms from some Nokia DSLAM's. The odd thing was that it was -40C outside at the time. It turns out the fan's on these DSLAM's froze solid and the devices thought they where overheating and throwing alams left right and centre. We had to put a tarp over them with a heater during the winter to make sure they kept going.