[CCoE Notice] Chilled water for the Engineering Computing server room

[Charles John Young Jr.]

fyi,

The Engineering Computing server room depends on chilled water for 
cooling.  The servers cannot operate for very long without the 
supplemental cooling provided by the chilled-water.  The equipment would 
eventually overheat and be damaged.  As a general rule, for an outage 
longer than an hour at most, the equipment needs to be shutdown and 
powered off.

This morning around 7 a.m. we experienced a chilled-water outage as a 
result of a malfunction of the variable-speed drive on the pump that 
provides chilled water for Engineering 2 (including the Engineering 
Computing server room).  Plant Operations staff was able to reset the pump 
drive and restore circulation in just under an hour.

However, at some point the variable-speed drive may need to be repaired 
and/or replaced, and if this will result in an extended outage of our 
chilled-water circulation, we will need to plan for this outage and take 
steps to avoid risk to our equipment.

I understand that several groups are conducting extensive computational 
activities over the holiday break, and any outages would have an adverse 
impact on your schedules.  I will do my best to keep you informed of any 
changes in circumstances to our operational environment; however, be aware 
that any extended loss of chilled water cooling will, of necessity, result 
in a shutdown of all Engineering computing services without benefit of 
advanced notice.

John Young
Engineering Computing