Integrated Rack IR7000

The Dell Integrated Rack featuring the Dell PowerCool eRDHx Enclosed Rear Door Heat Exchanger delivers an innovative solution for enhancing data center efficiency, boosting compute density through Open Rack standards while significantly reducing cooling energy costs with its industry-leading enclosed heat exchanger.

The development of Dell’s Integrated Rack Solution was driven by a deep exploration of the evolutionary advantages offered by the Open Compute Project (OCP) and Open Rack standards. These standards challenge legacy EIA constraints by expanding the system envelope, replacing traditional power and liquid lines with direct connections, and eliminating accessory elements for a streamlined, vanity-free appearance.

While this minimalist approach enhances functional efficiency, it can come at the expense of user experience. This insight sparked the creation of a new vanity-free design language, one that reimagines essential components with a focus on usability and aesthetics.

Concept development centered on pushing the boundaries of OCP guidelines while honoring the principles of standardization. Physical prototypes were built to refine human factors and simulate future hardware configurations and cable loads. Dell collaborated closely with the OCP Open Rack vendor to develop enlarged bays for cable management and integrate cooling pathways directly into the rack structure for enhanced thermal performance.

In parallel, the team engineered and tested working prototypes of the heat capture enclosure, optimizing airflow using air movers and simulated heat sources to reflect dense rack environments. Rigorous testing and iteration validated the design’s reliability and readiness for production.

User and serviceability testing played a critical role, with IT professionals engaging hands-on with early builds of the PowerCool eRDHx deployment hoist system—designed to simplify the lifting and installation of cooling components within a constrained 36-inch data center aisle.

The PowerCool eRDHx exemplifies a user-focused approach, delivering a self-contained rack cooling system purpose-built to scale with hyper-dense Integrated Rack deployments. This enclosed solution extends Dell’s legacy of best-in-class data center design into next-generation environments optimized for rack-scale AI and high-density compute, leveraging direct liquid cooling for maximum efficiency.