User knocks airflow of Cisco switches
Alan Warn, a data center manager at ABN AMRO who I spoke to last week for a story on CFD modeling in the data center, also had some things to say about Cisco switches and EMC storage devices.
Neither are new issues for data center facility managers, but they bear repeating. A popular Cisco LAN switch, the Catalyst 6500, blows its hot air out the sides, wreaking havoc on facility managers who are trying to arrange a hot-aisle, cold-aisle configuration in their data center.
“Cisco switches are getting harder and harder to cool,” Warn said. “Their processing equipment, the cooling runs side-to-side. It’s just madness.”
Last year, we asked Doug Gourlay, Cisco’s senior director of data center solutions, about that exact issue in a Q&A we had with him. His answer? The Catalyst 6500 is actually offered in a front-to-back airflow configuration as well, but many data centers don’t buy it because you can’t fit as many ports into it as in the side-to-side version. The bottom line is that if you buy Cisco switches, you have sacrifice either proper airflow or port density, neither of which is very attractive.
Warn said he is looking at some APC cabinets that have special fans to take air from the sides and force it out the back.
Posted: April 30th, 2008 under Data center physical infrastructure, Data center cooling.
In addition to APC’s effective active fan solution. Great Lakes Cabinets offers a passive add on option called the Side Airflow Plenum Kit (SAFPL) that very cost effectively corrects this very challenging Cisco airflow issue. You can check out the information at Great Lakes Site:
http://www.greatcabinets.com/PDF/Cisco%20Product%20Spotlight%202-08.pdf
I hope you find this information helpful.
Pete Belyea - CXtec
Comment by Pete Belyea — April 30, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
Mark:
Quick update, beyond the Catalyst 6500VE, both the Cisco Nexus 7000 modular switch and Cisco Nexus rack switch offer front to back airflow. The Cisco Nexus 7000 will deliver the density (up to 384 GE or 256 10Gb E) with front-to-back airflow.
Omar Sultan
SMM - Data Center Switching
Cisco Systems
Comment by Omar Sultan — April 30, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
Omar, thanks for the update. From talking to users it seemed like they’re not aware of the front-to-back models. I wonder if your salespeople aren’t pushing it as much as the side-to-side models, or if they’re just not getting any interest when they bring it up.
-Mark
Comment by Mark — May 1, 2008 @ 9:12 am
I place my switches in racks only not in cabinets just to preclude this type of problem. I understand if your computer room does not allow you to use any racks just cabinets but this does fix that problem. I think these sitches were made to be mounted in racks rather than cabinets
Comment by Ricky Morgan — May 1, 2008 @ 11:58 am