Data Center Cold Aisle Containment Curtains

Ready for aisle containment curtains? Ready to contain your hot or cold aisle? Great! Containment curtains – hot aisle or cold aisle – offer the best value to total isolation.

Aisle Containment Curtains can be very useful in managing airflow in the data center. While they aren't hard to configure and setup, there are some important considerations and prerequisites before you begin. It is helpful to consider every "step" simultaneously because each decision can impact other multiple issues.

 

Prerequisites to Installing a Curtain System in the Data Center

Data Clean positions softwall curtain barriers as the third solution in the sequential path of airflow management improvement. Curtains come AFTER implementing hot aisle - cold aisle layout, managing cutouts, and installing in-rack blanking panels! The reason for this is that containment curtains serve a purpose to isolate the hot and cold aisles in a computer room.

Curtains are only one of several components needed to achieve hot/cold aisle containment.

In order for curtains to be most effective, you must first manage by-pass airflow:

• Install blanking panels in any open server rack space
• Add barrier panels, if needed, between server rack rails and cabinets
• Seal off any raised floor cutouts

Without these critical components in place, aisle isolation cannot be achieved and the curtains will have limited effect. Curtains in the data center only really make sense when bypass airflow is managed.

While curtains are the most visible cooling solution, they are also the most expensive. This discussion is specific to softwall curtain systems for data centers and computer rooms.