The outgoing air handler (white box at right) has been loaded onto a flatbed trailer. Gary New (SCD; in sunlight below crane boom) and Jose Rivas (ATD; in shadow across from Gary) stand on opposite sides of the Mesa Lab computer room access shaft. The crane operator is Jeff Bobka (ATD).

New air handler for NCAR computers

On September 29, eight days after the arrival of 14 new IBM Cluster 1600 servers, the computer room received a new air handler. This unit provides high-volume cooling to control the heat output of the supercomputers. It pulls in hot air from above, transfers it through a chilled-water heat exchanger, then pumps cold air under the computer room floor where it is released in front of the intake side of the supercomputers.

Massive cooling is required to control the temperature in the computer room. Currently, the room has 15 strategically placed air handlers. The new unit will mitigate the extra heat load from the new servers, and it will perform more efficiently than the unit being replaced. That unit was more than 10 years old, and it was near the end of its service life.

The timing of this unit's installation is well planned. It sets against a wall behind bluesky, and when the new server frames are moved into position during the bluesky power down on October 11-19, moving the air handler around the longer row of bluesky frames would have been more difficult. The air handler will provide its cooling service for longer than the expected life of the supercomputer.

A crane is required because the air handler is so large that it will only fit into the building through the computer room access shaft. Its 1,500-pound weight did not require a crane as large as the one used. However, the crane in the photo is owned by NCAR's Atmospheric Technology Division, and they use it to lift equipment for NCAR's aircraft and radar operations. They also apply it to other tasks such as this. SCD appreciates working with them because their response time is fast, the cost is much lower than hiring a crane from outside the organization, and the quality of their work is first-rate.

SCD Computing Facility Engineer Gary New has his own hardhat. When he moves or installs large equipment, he wears proper safety gear such as this hat and steel-toed shoes.