This InformationWeek article delves into the details of some of today’s most innovative data centers. You’ll read about data centers that cool with winter air, run on solar power, provision services without human involvement, and are virtually impenetrable. Any one of the tips – and there are dozens – could be a major breakthrough for your company.
Secure and operationally and energy efficient, these facilities provide a glimpse into practical, state-of-the-art design
Everything at Equinixhas been thoughtthrough for security
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By J. Nicholas Hoover
HERE ARE DATA CENTERS, ANDthen there are data centers.Thefirst kind ranges from the over-heated, wire-tangled, cramped clos-ets that sometimes also host clean-ing supplies to the more standardglass-house variety of years past.The second kind-and the topic of this article-Tcool with winter air, run on solar power, auto-matically provision servers without human in-volvement, and can't be infiltrated even if theattacker is driving a Mack truck full-throttles through the front gate.drah These "badass" data centers-energy efficient,ciRk automated, hypersecure-are held up as modelsraM of innovation today, but their technologies and
Copyright 2008 CMP Media LLC. Important Note: This PDF is provided solely as a reader service. It is not intended for reproduction or public distribution.For article reprints, e-prints and permissions please contact: PARS International Corp., 102 West 38th Street, Sixth Floor, New York, NY 10018; (212) 221-9595www.magreprints.com/quickquote.aspIN DEPTH / DATA CENTERS
methodologies could become standard fare tomorrow. Bryant opened its new data center took out the air con-Rhode Island's Bryant University sees its fair share ditioning, but not the servers themselves. Bryant wasof snow and cold weather. And all that cold outside air forced to use portable air conditioners just to get basicis perfect to chill the liquid that cools the university's apps up and running. American Power Conversionnew server room in the basement of the John H. alarms that register poor power or problematic tem-Chafee Center for International Business. It's just one peratures went off all the time, but the university couldway that Bryant's IT department is saving 20% to 30% do nothing about them."There was no air conditioningon power consumption compared with just a year ago. distribution system in there," says Gloster. "It was all"We've come from the dark ages to the forefront," says just one big pot, coming out of one duct."Art Gloster, Bryant's VP of IT for the last five years. Now the data center has a closed-loop cooling sys-Before a massive overhaul completed in April, the uni- tem using ethylene glycol, chilled by outside air whenversity had four "data centers" scattered across campus, it's cold enough. On a cold December day, the giant APCincluding server racks stuffed into closets with little con- chiller sits encased in snow, cooling the ethylene glycol.Rich Bertone, a Bryant technical analyst, estimates a30% to 40% savings on cooling costs compared withmore common refrigerant-based air conditioning.
THINK COOLThat's not the only innovative way to keep thingscool. The University of California at Berkeley is con-sidering using a huge defunct particle-acceleratorchamber as a reservoir for coolant to essentially "storecold" until it's needed, says IBM VP Steven Sams, headof the company's data center strategy consultancy.HP's cell Google says it's a strong believer in much cheaperarchitecture evaporative cooling (a.k.a. swamp coolers) in warm, dryisolatescooling climates. Co-location vendor Equinix has a data centerneeds that makes ice overnight when power is cheaper anduses the melting ice to cool during the day.cern for backup and no thought to efficiency. Now Another unusual step Bryant has taken is to buildBryant's consolidated, virtualized, reconfigured, blade- on grade, with no raised flooring. The university did itbased, and heavily automated data center is one of the because of space constraints, but Forrester Researchfirst examples of IBM's young green data center initiative. analyst James Staten says some of the largest techIBM practices what it preaches, spending $79 mil- companies are turning that building design into alion on its own green data center in Boulder, Colo. It trend for other reasons. "The new cooling systems re-spends $10 million a month on ene... [download for more]
