Vertiv today introduced the Vertiv Liebert CWA, a new generation of thermal management system for slab floor data centres. For decades, hyperscale and colocation providers have used raised floor environments to cool their IT equipment.
Simplifying data centre design with slab floors enables the construction of new white space more efficiently and cost-effectively, but also introduces new cooling challenges. The Liebert CWA was designed to provide uniform air distribution to the larger surface area which comes with a slab floor application, while also allowing more space for rack installation and compute density. Developed in the United States, the Liebert CWA chilled water thermal wall cooling unit is available in 250kW, 350kW and 500kW capacities and is available across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), as well as the Americas.
Liebert CWA technology utilises integrated state-of-the-art controls to facilitate improved airflow management and provide an efficient solution for infrastructures facing the challenges of modern IT applications. The Liebert CWA can also be integrated with the data centre’s chilled water system to improve the operating conditions of the entire cooling network. Furthermore, the Liebert CWA is installed outside the IT space to allow more floorspace in the data centre, to increase accessibility for maintenance personnel, and also increase the security of the IT space itself.
“The launch of the Liebert CWA reinforces our mission to provide innovative, state-of-the-art technologies for our customers that allow them to optimise the design and operation of their data centres” said Roberto Felisi, senior global director, thermal core offering & EMEA business leader at Vertiv. “As the Liebert CWA can be quickly integrated with existing cooling systems, customers can leverage all the benefits of a slab floor layout, such as lower installation and maintenance costs, and a greater availability of white space.”
Air handling units have been used in the past to cool raised-floor data centres but there is now an opportunity in the market to drive more innovative thermal management solutions for slab floor data centres. The Vertiv Liebert CWA provides Vertiv’s customers with a standardized thermal wall built specifically for data centre applications, therefore minimising installation costs of custom-made solutions on site. The product’s layout is engineered to maximise the cooling density and to meet the requirements for cooling continuity set by the most trusted and established certification authorities for data centre design and operation.
Vertiv has developed the Liebert CWA in close consultation with experienced data centre operators. With data centres having a myriad of layouts and equipment configurations, Vertiv has defined a strategic roadmap to enhance standardized thermal management solutions for slab floor applications. Vertiv also provides consulting and design expertise to create the right solution for their customers’ specific data centre white space requirements.
