Looking for the x-factor in data center efficiency

The suitability of a data center environment is primarily judged by its effect on the long-term health of IT hardware. Facility operators define their temperature and humidity set points with a view to balancing hardware failure rates against the associated capital and operational expenditures, with the former historically prioritized.

Over the past decade, this balance has shifted in favor of facility efficiencies as data center operators have gradually lifted their temperature (and humidity) limits from a typical 65°F to 68°F (18°C to 20°C) to somewhere between 72°F and 77°F (22°C and 25°C). However, many operators remain reluctant to further relax their temperature settings even for new data center designs, let alone their existing footprint.