Data Centre News
Dutch Engineers Launch Multi-Storey Data Centres
Put the cooling under the servers, says data centre builder Imtech
Dutch engineering company Imtech has launched a new multi-storey design for data centres, which it claims can save millions of Euros per year in a typical large company.
The Common Rail Cooling design draws on expertise from the company's building and engineering divisions, to channel air more efficiently, so a data centre using 10MW of electricity can save around €3 to €5 million a year, the company claimed at IDC's Enterprise Datacentre Conference in London.
Imtech is already building data centres to the new multiple-layer design, which meets the EU Code of Conduct for data centres. All fans and mechanical equipment is placed in the ground floor, and the second floor is a pressurised air plenum. Servers are on the second floor, and above that, there is access space.
"Most data centres are designed horizontally, which means there is inefficiency in the transport of power and cooling," said Frank Brand, the director of operations at Imtech. "They are mostly too large in terms of floor space, but too small in terms of the available power and cooling."
Placing the cooling directly under the servers increases the efficiency, he said. "We're a 200 year-old company, with expertise in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and ICT, It all comes together in data centres."
The design can be used in new data centres or retro-fitted to older ones, and instead of the normal 2.0 PUE of today's typical datacentres, will allow data centres to reach a more creditable 1.4 or so, said Brand.
Imtech is keeping up with current trends, raising the air temperature around its servers to reduce the power used in cooling, and proposing the waste heat can be used: "We are driving up the air temperature at the back of the servers to 38C. We can use that to heat offices, or water for a swimming pool."
Data centres built in this way would have the same capital expenditure as normal data centres, he said, but have a sizeable power saving. Imtech also offers data centre health checks.
Early breakthroughs for cloud computing
Cloud computing promises to revolutionise the way people access computing power by shifting intelligence from the desktop to the internet cloud. By centralising computing power and accessing it via the internet, enterprises hope to slash IT costs. Although it’s still early days for cloud computing, there have already been a number of significant technology developments.
IBM and Juniper Networks, for example, have recently demonstrated an interface that will let enterprise IT managers re-allocate computing resources between a private and public cloud. Taking virtualisation further, this gives IT departments the flexibility to allocate resources for their processing needs from any of their own data centres or cloud computing services accessed through the Internet.
By integrating public cloud computing services into the enterprise IT infrastructure, companies can avoid spending on their own IT systems to deal with peak computing needs, for example. Administrators could allocate resources on the fly so that non business critical applications could be farmed out over the Internet to cloud computing when enterprise computing resources are busy.
Three phases of development
Gartner has put together a timeline for the development of cloud computing services through to 2015. It says that in the short term cloud computing activity will be confined to specific projects conducted by technologically advanced application development organisations. These early pioneers will build services using early versions of service-enabled application platforms (SEAP), which Gartner says form the basis of cloud computing.
“SEAPs are the foundation on which software-as-a-service solutions are built,” said Mark Driver, research vice president at Gartner. “As SEAP technologies mature during the next several years, Gartner foresees three distinct, but slightly overlapping, phases of evolution. The first phase, through 2011, will be that of pioneers and trailblazers; the second, running from 2010 through 2013, will be about market consolidation; while the third phase from 2012 through 2015, will see mainstream critical mass and consolidation.” By 2015, cloud computing will be commoditised and be a preferred solution for many application development projects.
Companies investing in data centres despite economic turmoil
Amongst all the gloom about the world economy, data centres are bucking the trend. Two reports carried out by Campos Research & Analysis on the US and Europe respectively found that investments in data centre expansions were continuing apace in both locations. In the US, 84% of companies were planning to expand their data centres with the next 12-24 months, and similarly in Europe four out of five companies were planning expansions in the same timeframe.
“One finding that may surprise people is that companies are increasing their data centre budgets in 2009. This is a reflection of how companies view their data centres as critical assets for increasing productivity while reducing costs,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of data centre company Digital Realty Trust. Amongst the surveyed US companies, data centre spending already accounts for an average of 35% of overall IT budgets, with respondents planning to increase data budgets by an average of 6.6% in 2009.
The report commissioned by Digital Realty Trust surveyed senior decision makers who are either directly responsible for data centres or influence significant decisions related to data centre operations at large organisations in Europe and the US.
In Europe there was a 117% increase over the previous year’s survey in the number of firms that are looking for more than 2,500 square metres for their data centres, indicating that the scope of data centre projects has grown significantly. Average space requirements in Europe have also increased to 1,600 square metres from 1,300. In the US average data centre space requirements have also grown to 1,950 square metres, an increase of 16% over 2008.
In Europe, companies identified London as the top location for the data centre projects being planned, followed by Paris. “These markets already have a significant imbalance between demand for data centre facilities and very limited supply, and this study indicates that those will continue to be key locations for corporate data centre projects over the next two years,” said Bernard Geoghegan, Senior Vice President at Digital Realty Trust.
Introducing Imtech Data Centre Health Check
Imtech will undertake an assessment and coordination – tailored to conditions such as climate and energy markets regulation – to lower the barriers of access to these energy saving opportunities.
Imtech data centre health check includes all buildings, facilities and rooms which contain enterprise servers, server communication equipment, cooling equipment and power equipment, and provide some form of data service.
Health Check covers three main areas:
1. IT Load - this relates to the consumption efficiency of the IT equipment in the data centre and can be described as the IT work capacity available for a given IT power consumption. It is also important to consider the utilisation of that capacity as part of efficiency in the data centre.
2. Network Load - this relates to the efficiency of the networking architecture and the ability of the networking equipment to maximise the utilisation and performance of the IT equipment.
3. Facilities Load - this relates to the mechanical and electrical systems that support the IT electrical load such as cooling systems (chiller plant, fans, pumps) air conditioning units, UPS, PDUs etc.. Imtech will consider the data centre as a complete system, trying to optimise the IT system and the infrastructure together to deliver the desired services in the most efficient manner.