Recent advancements on thermal management and evaluation for data centers

As the hub of data storage, network communication, and computation station, data center has been inseparable from the development of each social sector. With the increasing demand on the data communication and calculation, the size and number of data centers are experiencing a dramatic expansion. As a critical sequel to the continuous deploying of data centers, the tremendous energy consumption has become a worldwide problem. Compared to the energy utilizing in office facilities, the energy demand per square meter has been increased by 100 times for data centers during recent years. To improve the energy utilizing efficiency of data centers, various design and operation method have been proposed. However, there are still short of statistical studies on the thermal management and evaluation of data centers and associated cooling systems. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review on the research and development in this field, covering the topics of thermal management techniques and associated evaluation metrics. In addition, energy conservation strategies and optimization methods account for the safety operating of data centers are also discussed in detail. Finally, guidelines on research and strategies for thermal management and evaluation in data centers are provided.