OREANDA-NEWS. September 6, 2011. Yandex today announced the opening of the first data center in Russia and the CIS that uses a special energy-efficient server cooling system.

The cooling system in the new data center uses ambient outside air. Average temperatures in the Moscow region during the year are typically low enough to ensure required temperature conditions in the data center. A special auxiliary cooling mechanism switches on in a low-power mode when the outside temperature rises above 22° C. It goes into full capacity only if the thermometer hits 31° C. Unlike most other data centers, Yandex’s new data center uses supporting coolers only temporarily, which allows it to maintain the same number of servers using only half the energy.

“We have been testing various “free cooling” technologies since the end of 2009. Our goal was to raise the temperature threshold as high as possible. Eventually, we managed to raise it from 13 to 22 degrees”, says Gennadiy Vakhutinskiy, head of Facilities Management at Yandex. “Using an energy-efficient system in the new data center is beneficial not only for the company but also for the environment: the less energy that is consumed, the fewer natural resources that are expended to produce it.”

The cooling system was developed by Yandex’s partner Ayaks-Engineering.