Patent ID: 8411439

Claim:
A data center cooling system, comprising: a plurality of computer racks arranged in a plurality of substantially parallel rows, with a particular row separated from another row by a human-occupiable aisle from which the computer racks in the particular row can be serviced; cooling units closely coupled to the computer racks and arranged in substantially parallel rows to cool air warmed by the computer racks, with a particular row of cooling units serving multiple rows of racks; and cooling fluid supply and return conduits that are divided by isolation valves into a plurality of cooling sub-loops, wherein a particular sub-loop in the plurality of cooling sub-loops provides cooling fluid for more than one row of cooling units, and a particular row of cooling units receives cooling fluid from more than one sub-loop of the plurality of sub-loops, and air from a particular computer rack in a row of the plurality of substantially parallel rows is cooled with cooling fluid provided from more than one sub-loop of the plurality of cooling sub-loops, the cooling fluid supply and return conduits are arranged in a plurality of substantially parallel rows and each cooling unit in a row is served by one and only one sub-loop, and the rows of the cooling fluid supply and return conduits are substantially orthogonal to the rows of the cooling units and human-occupiable aisle, and fluid from one cooling fluid supply conduit serves multiple rows of cooling units.