Patent ID: 8855963

Claim:
A computer usable program product comprising a computer usable non-transitory storage medium including computer usable code for discovering thermal relationships in a data processing environment, the computer usable code when executed by a processor causes performance of operations comprising: changing an output temperature of a cooling unit operating in the data processing environment from a previous output temperature to a new output temperature, wherein the difference between the previous and the new output temperatures is a change in the output temperature, wherein the cooling unit is separate from and provides cooling to a plurality of data processing systems in the data processing environment; measuring a change in an ambient temperature proximate to a data processing system, the plurality of data processing systems including the data processing system, wherein the change in the ambient temperature is a difference between a previous ambient temperature and a new ambient temperature; determining an expression that represents a relationship between the change in the output temperature and corresponding change in the ambient temperature, wherein the relationship is plottable as a curve on a graph and the expression is a mathematical equation representing the curve; using the expression to determine a cooling correspondence between the cooling unit and the data processing system, wherein the cooling correspondence according to a curve provides a proportionality between (i) cooling received by the data processing system from the cooling unit and (ii) the change in the output temperature; and computing, using the relationship, a fraction of cooling contributed by the cooling unit to the data processing system and a fraction of thermal load contributed by the data processing system from the plurality of data processing systems to the cooling unit.