Data Center Monitoring

The datacenter temperature and humidity guidelines set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has created a widely accepted set of guidelines for optimal temperature and relative humidity set points for data centers. The guidelines were presented in the 2016 ASHRAE Date Center Power Equipment Thermal Guidelines and Best Practices (see picture). The temperature limits: 18...27°C. The relative humidity limits: 40...60%rh. The dew point limits: 5.5...15°Cdp.

It is also crucial to define where the temperature measurement is made and ASHRAE recommends the following: server inlet, server exhaust, floor tile supply temperature, HVAC unit return air temperature, computer room air conidtioning unit supply temperature. The lower the air suppler temperature in the data center the higher the cooling costs (which represent a massive cost for the data center user).

Differential pressure monitoring can be used to check the temperature variances in data centers with a hot-aisle and cold-aisle layout.