Microsoft is submerging servers in boiling liquid

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

*Points a terrified shaking finger at certain extremely scary fluorine compounds.*

Well tbh flooding the room with that might have been OVH's only chance at stopping it, assuming that was not done of course.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Well tbh flooding the room with that might have been OVH's only chance at stopping it, assuming that was not done of course.

So it is a fire suppression chemical?  That 50c phase change would do a lot.  I don’t know what it’s made of though. Some things that are terrific at almost all kinds of fire suppression still burn under the right circumstances.  Like dirt.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

So it is a fire suppression chemical?  That 50c phase change would do a lot.  I don’t know what it’s made of though. Some things that are terrific at almost all kinds of fire suppression still burn under the right circumstances.  Like dirt.

Novec was invented for fire suppression (at least I believe it was), when used for that purpose it's actually a gas (stored in liquid form), it's the stuff to replace Halon as you can't use that anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novec_649/1230

https://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/2007conference/files/Engine_Fire_Protection/WedAM/FabreandDeletainAirbushalrep/FabreandDeletainbAirbushalrepPresNoVid.pdf

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-us/applications/fire-suppression/

[HerrKaLeu]

15 hours ago, leadeater said:

It doesn't as the boiling point is 50C and there is condensing coils above the liquid in the sealed units and the cooling coil will be cooled most likely with water that is recirculated outside, so as long as it's less than 50C outside the cooling fluid will be contacting a cooling coil that is below 50C and thus condense and drip back down.

 

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/data-center-us/applications/immersion-cooling/

OK, so basically a direct economizer where they accept the coolant to be 50C. I guess that is similar to doing the same with water cooling and letting ambient air cool the water directly. Except with water cooling you are very limited to what you cool (not transistors, capacitors) whereas this fluid cools everything. Heatcapacity of this coolant (really, a refrigerant) is higher than water. 

 

So if this refrigerant has direct contact with a CPU/GPU heatspreader and is at 50C, is that still enough heat transfer to cool a high-power CPU/GPU? Or do they add some heatsink to increase transfer surface? I assume some sort of passive cooler on a CPU would help. 

[Bombastinator]

23 minutes ago, HerrKaLeu said:

OK, so basically a direct economizer where they accept the coolant to be 50C. I guess that is similar to doing the same with water cooling and letting ambient air cool the water directly. Except with water cooling you are very limited to what you cool (not transistors, capacitors) whereas this fluid cools everything. Heatcapacity of this coolant (really, a refrigerant) is higher than water. 

 

So if this refrigerant has direct contact with a CPU/GPU heatspreader and is at 50C, is that still enough heat transfer to cool a high-power CPU/GPU? Or do they add some heatsink to increase transfer surface? I assume some sort of passive cooler on a CPU would help. 

I think one way to say passive cooler would be surface area increaser.  The photos I have seen have not shown such.  They appear to be bare IHSes.  Could be wrong though. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, HerrKaLeu said:

So if this refrigerant has direct contact with a CPU/GPU heatspreader and is at 50C, is that still enough heat transfer to cool a high-power CPU/GPU? Or do they add some heatsink to increase transfer surface? I assume some sort of passive cooler on a CPU would help. 

There's still heatsinks on CPUs, GPUs etc so they can be at least POST tested outside of the coolant liquid and as you suggest to increase the thermal transfer to the liquid. Just like you still need a water block with micro-fins with water cooling as exposed die isn't enough surface area, also need protection anyway, and a flat metal surface isn't good enough too (exposed die comment more applicable to GPUs).

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 4/9/2021 at 12:28 PM, J-from-Nucleon said:

Summary

 

Microsoft has revealed that it's been experimenting with a “two-phase immersion cooling technology” to prevent its data centre servers from overheating and causing outages across its cloud-based communications platforms such as Microsoft Teams. The tech giant is said to be the first cloud provider running two-phase immersion cooling in a production environment.

Quotes

 

My thoughts

This is actually pretty interesting. Microsoft being the first to implement to implement a rather new technology. Two-phase cooling is actually pretty interesting at least for me but it is unlikely for this tech to trickle down into the consumer spae but I'm sure Linus will find a way to get his hands on this tech. But yea, microsoft becoming sustainable is a good initiative and here's to hoping that other companies follow suit with technology and practices that actually work.

 

Sources

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-gets-two-phase-immersion-cooling-running-in-an-azure-data-center/

https://www.itpro.co.uk/server-storage/data-centres/359129/microsoft-submerges-servers-in-boiling-liquid-to-prevent-teams

Microsoft must have a real hankering for drowning their servers. Maybe they wanted to get rid of their 'Homework' 

[tkitch]

8 hours ago, huilun02 said:

There is a liquid that is even safer for the environment and much cheaper to obtain.

 

I use it everyday in my computer too, in my closed loop liquid cooler.

So I should just dump my computer in a bucket of Water and Antifreeze?

 

Your argument here is absolute nonsense, as you're talking about something ENTIRELY different.

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, huilun02 said:

There is a liquid that is even safer for the environment and much cheaper to obtain.

 

I use it everyday in my computer too, in my closed loop liquid cooler.

Sounds like mineral oil.  There are various problems with mineral oil.  Most of them revolve around mineral oil being a sticky mess that is really really hard to clean up and makes plastics brittle over long periods because of the sulphur which can be drastically reduced but apparently not eliminated entirely.  I’ve sort of wondered about the possibility of what amounts to a sacrificial anode for that.

[tkitch]

8 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Its somehow cooling my cpu just fine

you're honestly trying to compare a Closed Loop Cooler to  Sumbmersion/Immersion Cooling ???

[leadeater]

24 minutes ago, tkitch said:

you're honestly trying to compare a Closed Loop Cooler to  Sumbmersion/Immersion Cooling ???

Sure, just put the AIO RAD on the inside of the immersion tank then run the tubes and cold plate outside of it then connect the cold plate of the AIO to a heat exchanger that runs water to outside cooling towers. There totally the same thing 

[leadeater]

36 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Its somehow cooling my cpu just fine

Yea but you don't have two 280W CPUs and four 350W GPUs in a 1U server. You can cool this with a water loop and is the most common way but the inside chassis temp still gets very high and you also may need to use chilled water not just water which means bad PUE. When liquids evaporate that has a very good and effective cooling effect which is why it's superior cooling for the same surface area as water cooling and does not require active chilling.

 

This is simply a solution to a problem no home user "should" have.

[Bombastinator]

On 4/11/2021 at 9:32 AM, HerrKaLeu said:

I had to look up PUE. It states top performers get a around 1.2. I assume that includes the need for a heat pump cycle and not just " free"  cooling (economizer) assuming the climate requires heat pump cooling. 

 

How does one get the 1.03 mentioned in this thread? this can only be possible if you are in a cold climate and only need to operate pumps and fans. A good chiller has a COP of maybe 7. So you need about 0.14 for the chiller alone plus auxiliary fans and pumps.  COP will vary with the lift required, which will depend on ambient temperature. 

 

I assume PUE is an annual number. So if you are in a climate with cold winters, you can free-cool part of the year. But this gets really wonky to compare data centers. the Florida Datacenter will inherently have higher numbers than an Alaska center. 

 

The claim to get PUE of 1.03 with this phase change seems to ignore that once the server heats up the liguid (boils it) it needs to be cooled to condense and return to the server. Again, if you are not in a cold climate, you need some heatpump (like a chiller) to dissipate the heat. 

 

From a thermodynamic point this isn't so much different than a heat pipe cooler. Except the entire server is in the heatpipe. and the condensing end still needs to be cooled by "something". the advantage i see due to phase change you need to move less fluid per kW cooled. and due to submersion you also cool all components (capacitors, etc.). So if you need to plug in a new cable you drain the server or send in a scuba diver?

 

Or is this a one-time use of the liquid? You wouldn't need a heat pump if you constantly inject new liquid and let it evaporate. I can't believe this is the case wit the cost of the liquid, and the hazard. 

 

So are they missing part of the energy cost in their claim? Or did they re-write laws of thermodynamics? Or is that just in a cold climate? 

 

Naw. Liquid to liquid heat exchangers can do some amazing stuff.  It’s not even new tech.  Tends to be neither small nor cheap, but this is industrial level not home level.