For the tenth time, the seven portals Datacentres-Insider, BigData-Insider, CloudComputing-Insider, Dev-Insider, IP-Insider, Security-Insider, and Storage-Insider jointly called on their readers to vote for the best IT companies of the year. On 17 October, a total of 72,000 votes decided who would stand on the winner’s podium. Rittal again took the top place as the most popular IT cooling provider.
The insider Vogel Verlag medium is one of the relevant independent sources of information in the German B2B environment, averaging around 1.5 million page impressions per month. Once a year, they ask their readers to choose the best providers. The jury's pre-selection was based on the fact that the companies had made a difference in the industry between 2023 and 2024, for example through their inventiveness, ground-breaking strategies or their market instinct. Rittal won the Platinum Award in the “Cool Cooling” category for the third time in a row as the best provider of IT cooling solutions. The providers Stulz and Lenovo were awarded gold and silver.
“We are particularly pleased about this award because so many readers voted for it,” says Martin Neubauer, Rittal’s Customer Advisor in sales, who received the award in person: “For us, the users’ vote is decisive. Direct discussion with them is highly relevant for developing custom solutions.”
Daring to try something new together
There is currently a high demand for new IT cooling solutions. The whole industry is facing a profound technological upheaval, as the power density needed by AI applications pushes air cooling to its limits. In close coordination with multiple hyperscalers and server OEMs, Rittal has developed a Cooling Distribution Unit (CDU) that uses direct single-phase liquid cooling to deliver a cooling output of over 1 MW, thus making the power densities required for AI processors/servers achievable as an “enabling technology.”
New technology, familiar handling?
“It’s not enough to simply provide the cooling capacity and ‘place’ it in the data centre; new technology raises new questions, particularly concerning integration into tried-and-tested processes,” says Michael Nicolai, Rittal’s Head of Sales IT Germany. “Data centre operators need to be able to handle the new technology as much as possible with the existing resources within the scope of their services.”
Rittal has implemented this requirement through a modular structure in standardised OCP racks. The coolant distribution unit (CDU) fits into just one rack, which is installed in series with the server racks. The CDU pumps the cool water in a closed circuit through the suite of racks – and within the racks directly onto the processors via the heat sinks. The heat is then dissipated via a central heat exchanger to a water circuit in a building (liquid-to-liquid) or to the air in the data centre via a cooling device on the rack (liquid-to-air).
Within the CDU circuit, the server is connected to the central inlets and outlets of the water circuit via standardised connections, similar to the power supply in the OCP rack. CDU functional units like the central controller unit and several coolant supply units (CCUs), are fully modular and are pushed into the rack like server modules. Components such as controllers, sensors or the pump units of the in-row solution can be maintained during operation and easily replaced via “hot swap”. This also achieves the redundancy required in data centre environments.
What will be the next best practice?
“We are convinced that powerful liquid-to-liquid solutions with capacities of over 1 MW will become the standard in the data centres of hyperscalers and larger colocators in the long term,” Mr. Nicolai explains: “To accelerate the technological change, quickly deployable liquid-to-air versions are also relevant. They do not need their own water connection and can thus be easily used and tested in existing, air-cooled server rooms.” These liquid-to-air versions cool the processors with water but release the heat via the rear door of the rack, or a side cooler to the air.
Because of their design, they do not achieve the same cooling output and efficiency as liquid-to-liquid solutions, but they can be tested in any data centre without any major interventions. “This allows operators to perform their own tests with less effort and investment or create individual ‘HPC islands’ in air-cooled data centres for their users. These variants consequently have a leverage effect and bring direct liquid cooling into the data centre as an enabling technology for AI,” Nicolai adds.