{mosgoogle}Hewlett-Packard plans to begin selling a water-cooling system next week to address the power and heat problems that new technology inflicts on computer administrators.

The Modular Cooling System attaches to the side of an HP rack of computing gear, providing a sealed chamber of cooled air separated from the rest of a data center, said Paul Perez, vice president of storage, networking and infrastructure for HP's Industry Standard Server group.

"We used to talk to IT" when approaching customers, Perez said. But because of the power issue, "now we're talking to IT and facilities together. The customers ask, 'What should our power budget be over next three years?' After the sticker shock for energy costs, they say, 'How is HP going to help get the cost down?'"

The system lets a rack consume as much as 30 kilowatts of power--about three times what would be possible otherwise--without posing problems to a data center's cooling systems, Perez said. However, the cooling system also requires a connection to an external chilled-water system to cool its water.

Liquid cooling, used in vintage computers from companies such as Control Data Corp. and Cray, is experiencing a comeback because of new technology challenges. Processors are consuming more electricity and being packed more densely, and electricity costs to pay for that power and for air conditioning have been increasing.

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