Today’s business conditions are driving a radical rethinking in the ways that data centre power infrastructure is provisioned, explains Tony Day, global director of data centre projects and professional services, Schneider Electric

Today’s businesses are highly reliant upon technology which in many cases has become a key business differentiator. But while there has been rapid innovation in technology to support the dynamics of business, the data centre itself has changed very little by comparison over time and requires significant investment both in CAPEX and OPEX terms.

The mismatch between IT support for the business and infrastructure support for the IT has become more acute today. A new IT service provision can be implemented in minutes in a highly virtualised environment, but significant infrastructure changes are measured in months. If the data centre is not to become a barrier for the technology which supports the business, then physical infrastructure and IT need to be more closely aligned

Under these circumstances and drivers, new modular options are starting to gain traction over traditional approaches for data centre physical infrastructure in new build and retro-fit developments. A recent survey carried out by Tier 1 Research (Datacentre 2.0 September 2011) looking at the MDC market produced a provisional estimate of existing market size of approximately $240m in revenue in the 12 months to mid 2011. However this was expected to grow dramatically by an average of 25% to 55% annually over the next five years.

Why modular architecture?

Strictly speaking modularity has always existed in traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ data centre construction, however in the sense of today’s MDC’s we really mean a method of total facility construction that is modular in approach from foundation to roof, including everything in between, which can be delivered within the business horizon on a JIT basis.

The crucial key attribute of modularity is that it enables standardisation, which in turn reduces cycle times. Standardisation permits quality, reliability and efficiency to be driven up and cost driven down. A well considered fully standardised modular data centre architecture allows the designer freedom to design a unique solution to meet unique business requirements using readily available, cost-effective building blocks.

Standardised modular design provides agility - the ability to respond to changing or unexpected business opportunities – and is a major contributor to higher availability and lowered total cost of ownership:

•  MDC systems must be scalable to current business needs, with the capability to add to or reduce capacity when required. This ability to ‘right-size’ can provide a significant reduction in total cost of ownership by eliminating oversizing, the biggest cause of inefficiency in the data centre.

• MDC systems need to be adaptable, providing greater flexibility to reconfigure physical infrastructure to meet changing IT requirements.

• MDC systems need to be portable: self-contained components, standard interfaces, and logical structure which save time and money when modular systems are installed, upgraded, reconfigured, or moved for reuse (reuse is a far greener approach than recycling but rarely a cost effective option with traditional data centre plant and infrastructure).

• MDC components need to be swappable - modules that fail can be easily swapped out for upgrades or repair, often without any system shutdown.

• Adopting a standardised modular architecture  simplifies the process of data centre construction and, in the case of the IT Whitespace or data hall when using appropriate prefabricated and pre-engineered rooms, provides conventional physical internal space while still enjoying the benefit of scalability, flexibility, just-in-time (JIT) deployment and ease of delivery normally only associated with container solutions.

• The goal of most MDC providers is to deliver new capacity within a 3 to 4 month delivery window – more than 6 times faster than traditional designs. Eventually when systems are ‘off-the-shelf’ inventory items the expectation is to reduce the delivery window by up to 75%.

• High efficiency M&E solutions for the physical infrastructure and their associated fully integrated control and management systems can be supplied in standardised facility modules. These reduce site engineering requirement and the risk of what government reports have referred to as the ‘fuzzy-edge’ disease of the industry –interface issues between the various component parts of infrastructure systems.

New modular solutions

During the last 12 months, Schneider Electric has introduced new solutions to meet the growing interest in standardisation and modularity. In November 2010, the company made the global announcement of EcoBreeze, a 400kW modular indirect evaporative and air-to-air heat exchanger cooling solution. In May 2011, power and cooling facility modules were launched at AFCOM in the USA, followed by the launch of EMEA power and cooling facility modules at DatacenterDynamics Converged in London on 30 November 2011.

The new fully integrated modular systems address contemporary data centre challenges by meeting the market imperatives to be fast, flexible, easy and predictable. Fast, because facility modules are verified for compliance for safety, energy efficiency, compatibility and security, reducing design cycles from months to weeks, installation from months to days, and reducing complexity in the whole commissioning process.

Facility modules allow infrastructure which is flexible, able to be deployed and scaled as needed to meet demand. These solutions can extend the life of current data centres in need of additional power and cooling and can then be transported to new locations for reuse at the end of the original data centre facilities lifecycle. Easy, because performance and operation is factory verified and guaranteed ahead of any final client field testing to see what the infrastructure will actually deliver. Standardised modular units provide reliable lead times, and are tuned for maximum energy efficiency ‘out of the box’.

Finally, they are predictable in performance. Facility modules utilise volume manufactured components limiting product defects and reducing overall design and installation time. The Schneider Electric facility module enclosures are new purpose-engineered structural frames designed to meet the precise plant requirements in terms of efficient footprint and structural performance. They do utilise the really useful element of an ISO container the international standard corner block forgings which are welded into all new frames to allow use of industry standard lifting beams; slings attachments; latching systems and scoots etc. All solutions have software pre-programmed and fully integrated management systems.

These factors combine to make facility modules highly energy efficient.  The new facility power modules incorporate APC Symmetra PX 500 high efficiency modular UPS, and batteries. These units are scalable and fault tolerant, featuring hot-swappable power modules to enable users to adopt a pay-as-you-grow approach to power protection, and minimise mean time to repair (MTTR).

Since Code requirements vary across EMEA, Schneider Electric has built the facility modules to meet the more exacting of the potential requirements and therefore include elements such as a segregated battery room as well as a secondary means of escape exit in case of emergency as standard. Other features include critical and 1.1MW primary load switch panels, separate cable chambers to simplify hook-up (which means it is not necessary for field install engineers to enter factory certified electric panels), inert gas fire suppression and an aspirating detection system, and a fully integrated cooling system for the UPS and batteries with direct free-cooling capability.

The facility cooling modules feature high efficiency chillers with integrated free-cooling capability and a wide operating range to cover the varying environmental conditions across the region. The new units comprise 6 x 100kW nominal chiller units designed by Uniflair for these modules to provide 500kW redundant cooling on an N+1 basis. All facility modules are fitted with Schneider fully integrated management software including Infrastruxure Central, ION Enterprise, and Continuum.

Conclusion

Standardised, modular architecture enables the commoditisation of the data centre infrastructure, so that the deployment of power, cooling and the white space can be more closely aligned with the deployment of the IT solutions to support the business. Greater certainty is provided for the designer and their client with the completed deployment performance known and guaranteed at the design stage without addition field tweaking of the system. This highly granular approach allows deployment in the amounts that are needed when they are needed on a JIT basis avoiding a heavily front end loaded phased build out with associated reductions in first cost and TCO and an increase in efficiency. As business needs change it is also physically and financially feasible to upgrade a facility or reuse individual modules or complete solutions at other locations providing genuine future proofing for the business’s investment.