HP thinks so. They don’t have any specific product plans but they talked me through how their existing Apollo 8000 high compute server system could be adapted to cool networking equipment and potentially eventually storage.
Here’s an excerpt from my report.
“Nearly a year after the launch of its liquid-cooled Apollo 8000 server, HP reports strong interest in the system from HPC facilities, as well as some service providers. The company declined to provide specific shipment numbers but notes that it has a healthy pipeline for the 8000. However, HP believes there needs to be a significant readjustment in the budgeting process for datacenter projects – to reflect the capital and energy-efficiency gains from using direct liquid cooling (DLC) – before the technology becomes more widely adopted.
The company is also considering how to apply its take on DLC technology to its networking and storage systems, as well as those of its partners. This would help overcome one of the roadblocks to greater DLC uptake: although DLC technology has the potential to eliminate the need for mechanical air-based cooling for servers, facilities still require some perimeter air cooling for networking and storage systems.”
451 Research clients can get the full report here:
EARTHED-TECH 