A computer-implemented method for sequential placement of cooling resources in a data center comprises: defining a weighted, higher-order cooling metric, , representing an overall performance of the cooling resources in the data center; enumerating all possible locations in the data center for placing an additional c cooling resources; and placing the c cooling resources in locations in the data center for which is closest to an optimum value. For a performance metric Mi, the weighted, higher-order cooling performance metric can be defined as M ^ = ∑ k = 0 C - 1 ⁢ ∑ i = 1 R ⁢ a ⁡ ( i , k ) ⁢ M i ( k ) , where R represents a number of racks in the data center, C represents a total number of cooling resources placed in the data center, i represents one of the R racks in the data center, Mi(k) represents a value of metric Mi when k cooling resources are shut down, and a(i,k) is a weighting function for rack i with the k cooling resources shut down. A system performing the method and computer-readable media having stored thereon instructions causing a processor to perform the method are also provided.