Rack Infrastructure Effects on Thermal Performance of a Server

Overview

This paper focuses on quantifying the impacts of a Cable Management Arm and the doors of an IT equipment rack on the airflow through a 1U server. While Dell has historically tested rack-mounted servers and storage equipment in an IT rack, the results were used as a pass/fail criteria for qualifying the thermal design of the server. The impact of individual components of the rack deployment (Doors, CMA, Cabling, etc.) was not, however, individually documented. A combination of customer inquiries, a desire to validate design standards, and a limited body of readily available literature on the topic sparked interest in a methodical approach to documenting these effects.