As the density of data centers continually increases, thermal management has become a major operational and facilities challenge. Distribution of airflow within the data center has a significant impact on the performance of your equipment.

Data centre managers have some options including the increase of CRAC capacity. This may solve a problem but in many cases it will be a costly solution to maintain.

Once the basic principles of cold aisles / hot aisles and blank panel to fill up unused rack space have been implemented, containment should be considered.

The containment options can better address these heat problems and allow you to save on your energy costs. There are several different approaches to containment, and also several different types of products that can be used to create these containment systems :

• Cabinet heat containment
• Cold Aisle containment
• Hot Aisle containment

They all address the same situation in different ways and all three may work for your specific situations.