I read from an article that raised flooring is under scrutiny by high availability datacenters for the below said reasons.

1. Earthquake
2. Cleaning
3. Safety
4. Power distribution
5. Cost
6. Floor loading
7. Access to under-floor cabling and security

Pls share your views on the same..

Best Regards,
Zhuhair.

Data Center designs are changing due to the demands (thermal loading) of todays high density designs. The raised floor design with cabling running underneath along with pressurized cooling air is a 30 year old design from days when power densities were far lower. Back in the "old" days when main frames ruled the data center each unit had direct access to the cool air under the floor. In todays vertical rack system, units near the top of a rack often experiance temperatures above 100deg F. The conventional wisdom is that for every 15deg above 70deg long term reliability of electronics decreases 50%. With current rack mount servers a single rack can easily exceed 10KW of thermal load. Next generation systems are expected to exceed 25KW load on a single rack.
Simply put we are reaching a point where air cooling will no longer suffice. HP has already alerted users that future systems will need to return to chilled water for cooling (the older main frames used chilled water, many older data centers still have the chilled water plumbing in place)

Yes. You are absolutely right. But is it not possible to achieve such cooling (15-25KW) by using a fully ducted return and locally ducted supply in a hard-floor environment. I feel using a chilled water system is more difficult to maintain and we have to be more cautious.

It would be great if I get an expert advice on this..

Yes, but chilled water is far more efficient than air in its ability to transfer heat. Remember there is decades of experience with chilled water from mainframes. So while it is a little more complicated and one needs to be a little more cautious, it has been used for a long time without major issues. And all indications are that we will all need to become reacquainted with it in the not too distant future.

Yeah, that's true. Current racks are almost touching 12-15 KW and in the near future we can expect it to reach 25 KW..We should probably go back to chilled water with increased precautions till we get a better option for cooling.

Best Regards,
Zhuhair.