Blade servers present a cooling challenge.

Blade servers are hot, Really hot.
These slim, high-powered CPUs generate heat like nothing you’ve ever installed in your data center before—a rack of blade servers can generate more heat than an electric oven! And as temperatures rise, servers may fail, leading to downtime and even data loss.

Needless to say, blade servers present a cooling challenge. If you plan to install them, you need to make sure you can accommodate their cooling needs.

Provide adequate ventilation.
Computer rooms have special equipment such as raised-floor cooling systems to meet their high cooling requirements, but it’s also important to ensure that cabinets used to house blade servers provide adequate ventilation—even in a cool room, hot spots can develop inside cabinets if air distribution is inadequate.

Fully perforated doors.
If you’re planning to install blade servers or other high-density components in cabinets, look for a cabinet with fully perforated doors in the front and rear—the greater the amount of perforation, the more cool air can be delivered to the components.

Use 75% up to 80% of capacity.
Don’t overload the cabinet by trying to fit in too many servers—75% to 80% of capacity is about right. Leave at least 1U of space between rows of servers for front-to-back ventilation. And finally, ensure all unused rack space is closed off with blank panels to prevent recirculation of warm air back to the front of the cabinet.