Turning back the clock at Barclays Americas’ data centers
By Jan van Halem and Frances Cabrera
Barclays is a major global financial services provider engaged in personal banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, and wealth and investment management with an extensive international presence in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Barclays has two major data centers in the northeastern United States with production environments that support the Americas region’s operations (see Figure 1). Barclays Corporate Real Estate Solutions (CRES) Engineering team manages the data centers, in close partnership with the Global Technology and Information Services (GTIS) team.
Both of Barclays Americas’ data centers are reaching 7 years old, but not showing their age—at least not energy wise. For the last 3 years, Barclays Americas’ engineering and IT teams have been on an energy-efficiency program to ensure that the company’s data center portfolio continues operating even more efficiently than originally commissioned.
Figure 1. Comparison of DC 1 and DC 2
By 2013, Barclays Americas’ two data centers had reduced their energy consumption by 8,000 (megawatt-hours (MWh) or 8%, which equates to 3,700 tons of carbon emissions avoided. In addition, the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of the largest data center dropped from an annual average of 1.63 to 1.54–earning it an Energy Star certification for 2013.
The Barclays Americas team pinpointed the following strategies for a three-pronged attack on energy inefficiency:
Airflow management
Enhancement of cooling operations
Variable frequency drive (VFD) installations on computer room air
conditioning (CRAC) units and pumps
The goals were to:
Reduce total cooling
Enhance heat transfer efficiencies
Reduce cooling losses (i.e., short cycling of air)
Figure 2. Summary of initiatives implemented across the two data centers: 2010-present.
The team found considerable savings without having to make large capital investments or use complex solutions that would threaten the live data center environment (see Figure 2). The savings opportunities were all identified, tested, implemented, and validated using in-house resources with collaboration between the engineering and IT teams.
Background
In 2010, Barclays launched a Climate Action Programme, which has since been expanded into its 2015 Citizenship Plan. The program included a carbon reduction target of 4% by the end of 2013 from 2010 levels. The target spurred action among the regions to identify and implement energy conservation measures and created a favorable culture for the funding of initiatives. Due to energy initiatives like the data center programs put in place in the Americas, Barclays reduced its carbon emissions globally by 12% in 2012, meeting the target two years early. Barclays is now setting its sights on a further carbon reduction of 10% by 2015.
From the beginning, it was understood that any new data center energy initiatives in the Americas must take into account both IT and building operation considerations. CRES and GTIS worked together on research, testing, and mocking up these initiatives. Their findings were shared with the central teams at headquarters so that case studies could be developed to ensure that the successes can be used at other sites around the world.
Blowing Back the Years
Initially, the team focused on airflow management. The team successfully reduced CRAC unit fan speeds at DC 1 from 70% to 40% by raising temperature set points as recommended by ASHRAE TC9.9, replacing unneeded perforated tiles with solid tiles, and installing Cold Aisle containment. All these changes were implemented with no impact to equipment operation.
The first step, and the easiest, was to evaluate the initial fan speed of the CRAC units at DC 1, and reduce it from 70% to 58%, with no effect on performance. When the DCs were commissioned they were briefly operating at 55°F (15°C), which was quickly increased to 65°F (18°C). By 2010, the temperature set points in Cold Aisles were raised to 75°F (24°C) from 65°F (18°C) in both DC 1 and DC 2 as recommended by updated ASHRAE standard for data center cooling.
Next, Barclays’ teams turned to the perforated tiles. Perforated tiles in DC 1 were replaced with solid tiles. This reduced CRAC fan speeds from 58% to 50%, with no impact on Cold Aisle temperature conditions and equipment operation.
Finally, in 2011, the PDU aisles were retrofitted with containment doors, which further improved airflow efficiency. After the site teams researched various options and recommended a commercial product, an in-house crew completed the installation. The team opted to use an in-house personnel to avoid having external contractors working in a live environment, which meant that the IT operations team felt comfortable having trusted engineering staff in the server rooms. The engineering staff used its expertise and common sense to install the doors with no disturbance to the end users.
Figure 3. Energy savings attributed to cooling enhancements
The team chose not to extend the containment above the aisles. Using data from wireless temperature and humidity sensors located throughout the aisles, the team found that it could still achieve ~80% of the projected energy savings without having the containment reaching the ceiling and avoid the additional cost and potential issues with local fire codes.
With the doors installed, the teams continue monitoring temperatures through the sensors and can control airflow by adjusting CRAC fan speeds,which regulates the amount of supply air in the Cold Aisle to minimize the bypass overflow and ensure efficient air distribution. As a result, return air temperature increased, driving efficiency and allowing further fan speed reductions of 50% to 40%. Again, these reductions were achieved with no impact to operating conditions. Based on these successes, Cold Aisle containment was installed at DC 2 in 2014.
Figure 4. Available free cooling at DC 1 and DC 2
A curve based on manufacturer’s data and direct power readings for the CRAC units enabled the teams to calculate the power reductions associated with volume flow rate reductions As a result, they calculated that the airflow initiatives resulted in 3.6 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy annually across DC 1 and DC 2 (see Figure 3).
Staying Cool
DC 1’s primary cooling system is a water-cooled plant consisting of two 1,250-ton chillers and five cooling towers. DC 1 was designed to utilize free cooling technology that feeds condenser water from cooling towers into a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger then cools the building’s chilled water. In 2011, the CRES Engineering team embarked on an initiative to maximize the use of free cooling.
After reviewing operational parameters such as temperature, water flow, and cooling tower fan speeds, Barclays team made the following adjustments:
Adding additional units to the series to slow down the water pumped through the heat exchanger. Making
the water go through two units instead of one increased the efficiency of the heat exchange.
Running two cooling tower unit fans at half the speed of one fan to reduce power demand as the result of
analyzing data from an electrical power monitoring system (EPMS). As a result, the volume of
condenser water was divided among multiple cooling tower units instead of all going into one.
Increasing chilled water temperature 4°F (7°C) from 2011 to today, expanded the period of time that
free cooling is possible (see Figure 4).
Of the three strategies, it is hardest to directly measure and attribute energy savings to enhancing cooling operations, as the changes impact several parts of the cooling plant. Barclays used the EPMS to track power readings throughout the systems, particularly the cooling tower units. The EPMS enables PUE trending and shows the reduction of DC 1’s PUE overtime. Since 2011, it’s dropped 5% to an annual average of 1.54.
Driving Back Inefficiency
Figure 5. Savings attributed to VFDs
In 2013 the teams began an intensive review of VFD technology. They found that considerable energy savings were to be obtained by installing VFDs on several pieces of equipment such as air handlers in plant rooms and condenser water pumps in both DC 1 and DC 2. The VFDs control the speed of an existing AC induction motor. By reducing the speed on air handlers, the unit load can be adjusted to the existing heat load (see Figure 5).
The team focused on (36) 30-ton units throughout DC 1 that would yield positive energy and cost savings. Utility rebates further enhanced the business case. The VFDs were installed towards the end of 2013, and the business case applied to DC 2 for further installations in 2014.
Figure 6. Savings attributed to frequency reductions on AC motors
To calculate savings, direct power readings were taken at the CRAC units at intervals of 2 hertz (Hz) from 60 Hz to 30 Hz. As shown in Figure 6, reducing CRAC frequency from 60 Hz to 56 Hz reduced power demand by 19%. In addition, the fan motor will release less heat to the air further reducing cooling load.
Additional maintenance cost savings are achieved through the extension of the filter replacement cycle. The VFDs allow less air to go through the system increasing the life span of the system filters. Once fully implemented the VFD installations will save over 3.9 GWh of energy.
Data as the Fountain of Youth
Comprehensive monitoring systems in place across the two data centers provided data accessible by both the GTIS and CRES teams, enabling them to make the best, data-driven decisions. The use of the sites’ EPMS and branch circuit monitoring system (BCMS) enable the teams to pinpoint areas with the greatest energy-saving potential and work together to trial and implement initiatives.
Barclays uses the EPMS as a tool to monitor, measure, and optimize the performance of the electrical loads. It monitors critical systems such as HVAC equipment, electrical switchgear, etc. A dashboard displays trend data. For example, the team can trend the total UPS load and the total building load, which yields PUE, on a continuous, real-time basis.
In addition to the EPMS, the CRES and GTIS teams also use the BCMS to track energy use by server cabinet, remote power panel, and power distribution unit. This system is used for capacity planning and load balancing. In addition, the monitored cabinet loads are used to optimize the airflow in the Cold Aisles.
Conclusion
With the right level of collaboration between CRES and GTIS, the right data, and the right corporate environmental targets, the Barclays Americas’ team was able to find energy and cost savings in their data centers. By executing airflow management, enhanced cooling, and VFD strategies in the existing data centers, the team applied the latest standards and best practices to keep energy consumption at levels typical of new data centers. At 8 GWh lighter, with an Energy Star certification and a PUE that keeps dropping—these data centers are not showing their energy age.
Jan van Halem is vice president, Data Center Engineering at Barclays. He joined Barclays’ engineering team in 2004. Mr. van Halem has more than 20 years experience and a strong knowledge of critical data center systems and mechanical operations. At Barclays, he is responsible for the mechanical and electrical systems of the company’s major data centers in the Americas. In addition, he has provided engineering design to new construction and expansion projects in the region.
Before joining Barclays, Mr. van Halem was with real estate organizations and held positions in facility management, construction management, and project management. Mr. van Halem has a BS degree in Marine Engineering from the Maritime Institute De Ruyter in Flushing, the Netherlands. He served as a marine engineer for 8 years in the Dutch Merchant Marine.
Frances Cabrera, LEED AP, is vice president, Environmental Management at Barclays. She joined Barclays’ environmental management team in 2011. Ms. Cabrera oversees Barclays Americas’ environmental programs, both resource saving and compliance, to support the region’s ISO certified management system. With the collaboration of the corporate real estate team, the region has achieved multiple LEED and Energy Star certifications. She’s also part of the firm’s global center of excellence for environment, where she works across regions to measure and support the firm’s green IT achievements.
Before joining Barclays, Ms. Cabrera ran the ISO 14001 systems in North and South America for Canon USA and worked at various manufacturing companies in Rochester, NY, integrating environmental considerations into their operations and meeting regulations. Ms. Cabrera has a BS degree in Environmental Technology and a MS degree in Environmental, Health, and Safety Management from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/barclays.jpg4751201Kevin Heslinhttps://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/uptime-institute-logo-r_240x88_v2023-with-space.pngKevin Heslin2014-12-05 12:56:552014-12-05 12:56:55Thinking Ahead Can Prevent the Mid-Life Energy Crisis in Data Centers
Achieving Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant cooling using various close coupled cooling technologies
By Matt Mescall
Early mainframe computers were cooled by water at the chip level. Then, as computing moved to the distributed server model, air replaced water. Typically, data centers included perimeter computer room air condition (CRAC) units to supply cold air to a raised floor plenum and perforated floor tiles to deliver it to IT equipment. These CRAC units were either direct-expansion (DX) or chilled-water units (for simplicity, CRAC will be used to refer to either kind of unit). This arrangement worked for the past few decades while data centers were primarily occupied by low-density IT equipment (< 2-4 kilowatts [kW] per rack). However, as high-density racks become more common, CRAC units and a raised floor may not provide adequate cooling.
To address these situations, data center cooling vendors developed close coupled cooling (CCC). CCC technology includes in-row, in-rack, above–rack, and rear-door heat exchanger (RDHx) systems. Manufacturers typically recommend the use of a Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle arrangement for greater efficiency, which is a best practice for all data center operations. As rack density increased due to IT consolidation and virtualization, CCC moved from being a solution to an unusual cooling situation to being the preferred cooling method. Implemented properly, a CCC solution can meet the Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant requirements of a data center.
While an air handler may provide humidity control, the close coupled cooling solution provides the onlycooling for the IT equipment in a data center. Additionally, it is assumed that the reader understands how to design a direct-expansion or chilled-water CRAC based cooling system to meet Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements. This paper does not address Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements for a central cooling plant, only the CCC system in the data hall.
Meeting Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant Requirements
First, let’s clarify what is required for a Concurrently Maintainable (Tier III) and a Fault Tolerant (Tier IV) cooling system. This discussion is not a comprehensive description of all Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant requirements, but it provides the basis for the rest of the discussion in this paper.
A Concurrently Maintainable system must have redundant capacity components and independent distribution paths, which means that each and every capacity component and distribution path element can be taken out of service for maintenance, repair, or replacement without impacting the critical environment.
To meet this requirement, the system must have dry pipes (no flowing or pressurized liquid) to prevent liquid spills when maintaining pipes, joints, and valves. Draining a pipe while it is disassembled is allowed, but hot tapping and pipe freezing are not. A Fault Tolerant cooling system may look like a Concurrently Maintainable system, but it must also autonomously respond to failures, including Continuous Cooling, and compartmentalize the chilled-water and/or refrigerant pipes outside the room of use (typically the computer room).
There are several different types and configurations of CCC. For simplicity, this paper will break them into two groups, in-row and above–row, and RDHx. While there are other CCC solutions available, the same concepts can be used to provide a Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant design.
In-row and above-row CCC
When data center owners have a business requirement for a high density data center to be Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant, a CCC design poses special circumstances that do not exist with room-based cooling. First, airflow must be considered. A CRAC-unit-based cooling design that is Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant has N+R cooling units that provide cooling to the whole room. When a redundant unit is off for maintenance or suffers a fault, the IT equipment still receives cooling from the remaining CRAC units via the perforated tiles in the Cold Aisle. The cooling in any Cold Aisle is not affected when the redundant unit is offline. This arrangement allows for one or two redundant CRAC units in an entire room (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. CCC airflow considerations
CCC provides cooling to the specific Cold Aisle where the unit is located. In other words, CCC units cannot provide cooling to different Cold Aisles the way CRAC units can. Accordingly, the redundant CCC unit must be located in the aisle where the cooling is required. In addition to having sufficient redundant cooling in every Cold Aisle, distance from the cooling unit to the IT equipment must also be considered. In-row and above row cooling units typically can provide cold air for only a limited distance. The design must take into account the worst-case scenario during maintenance or a failure event.
After considering the number of units and their location in the Cold Aisle, design team must consider the method of cooling, which may be air-cooled direct expansion (DX), chilled water, or a pumped refrigerant. Air-cooled DX units aretypically matched with their own condenser units. Other than proper routing, piping for air-cooled DX units require no special considerations.
Piping to chilled-water units is either traditional chilled-water piping or a cooling distribution unit (CDU). In the former method chilled water is piped directly to CCC units, similar to CRAC units. In this case, chilled-water piping systems are designed to be Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant in the same way as single-coil, room-based CRAC units.
The latter method, which uses CDUs, poses a number of special considerations. Again, chilled-water piping to a CDU and to single-coil, room-based CRAC units is designed to be Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant in the same way. However, designers must consider the impact to each Cold Aisle when a CDU is removed from service or suffers a fault.
If any single CDU provides cooling to more than the redundant number of cooling units in any aisle, the design is not Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant. When CDUs are located outside of the server room or data hall in a Fault Tolerant design, they must be properly compartmentalized so that a single event does not remove more than the redundant number of cooling units from service. A Fault Tolerant system also requires Continuous Cooling, the ability to detect, isolate, and contain a fault, and sustain operations. In a CCC system that rejects heat to a chilled-water system, the mechanical part of Continuous Cooling can be met with an appropriate thermal storage tank system that is part of a central plant.
A CCC system that rejects heat to outside air via refrigerant and a condenser will likely rely on uninterrupted power to provide Continuous Cooling which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
Some CCC systems use pumped refrigerant. These systems transfer heat from pumped refrigerant to a building’s chilled-water system, a glycol system, or an external condenser unit.
Due to the similarities between chilled-water and glycol systems with respect to the piping headers, glycol and chilled water systems will be treated the same for purposes of this paper.. The heat transfer occurs at an in-room chiller or heat exchanger that, for the purposes of this discussion, is similar to a CDU. The Con- currently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant design considerations for a pumped refrigerant system are the same as a chilled-water system that uses a CDU.
The system that powers all CCC components must be designed to ensure that the electrical system does not defeat the Concurrent Maintainability or Fault Tolerance of the mechanical system. In a Concurrently Maintainable mechanical system electrical design, no more than the redundant number of cooling units may be removed from service when any part of the electrical system is removed from service in a planned manner. This requirement includes the cooling within any aisle, not just the room as a whole. Designing the CCC units and the associated CDUs, in-room chillers, or heat exchangers in a 2N configuration greatly simplifies the electrical distribution.
Providing an A feed to half of the units and a B feed to the other half of the units while paying attention to the distribution of the CCC units, will typically provide a Concurrently Maintainable electrical design.
If the cooling system is in an N+R configuration, the distribution of the power sources will require special coordination. Typically, the units will be dual fed, which can be accomplished by utilizing an internal transfer switch n the units, an external manual transfer switch, or an external automatic transfer switch. This requirement applies to all components of the CCC system that require power to cool the critical space, including the in-row and above-row units, the in-room chillers, heat exchangers, and any power that is required for CDUs (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. CCC valve scenario
When any part of a Fault Tolerant electrical design for a mechanical system experiences a fault no more than the redundant number of cooling units may be removed from service. The same Concurrently Maintainable concepts apply to a Fault Tolerant electrical system; however, all of the transfer switches must be automatic and cannot rely on human intervention to respond to a fault. Additionally, in order to provide Continuous Cooling, uninterruptible power must be provided for cooling fans, in-room chillers and heat exchangers, pumps, and CDUs. A CCC system that uses DX and condensers to reject heat to outside air will require uninterrupted power to all system components to achieve Continuous Cooling.
The controls for these systems must also be considered in the design and meet the appropriate Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements.
RDHx
The requirements for a Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant RDHx cooling solution are similar to those for in-row cooling. The RDHx units typically use chilled water or a pumped refrigerant and CDUs, in-room chillers, or heat exchangers. These units need to meet all of the Concurrent Maintainability
or Fault Tolerant requirements of in-row CCC units. Airflow when a door is removed from service for either a planned event or due to a failure is a major consideration. When an RDHx solution cools an entire data center, it may be configured in a front-to-back rack configuration. When one or more doors are removed from service, the affected racks will blow hot exhaust air into the racks behind them, which may cause them to overheat, depending on the heat load.
This configuration does not meet Concurrent Maintainability or Fault Tolerant requirements, which require that the cooling system provide N cooling to all critical equipment during a planned maintenance event or a failure. Placing the racks in a Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle configuration may not meet this requirement as exhaust air from the affected rack may circulate over its top from the Hot Aisle and overheat the servers at the top of the rack and possibly adjacent racks. The same airflow issue is possible for racks placed at the end of rows when their RDHx is not working.
Summary
Using CCC as the only form of cooling in the data center is becoming more common. CCC provides additional challenges to meet Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements beyond those typically experienced with a CRAC-based cooling system. The challenges of different airflow, when compared to room- based CRACs, and ensuring that the consequential impact of maintenance and failures on the additional capacity components and distribution systems do not remove more than the redundant number of units from service can be met with careful consideration when designing all parts of the CCC system.
Matt Mescall
Matthew Mescall, PE, is a senior consultant for Uptime Institute Professional Services and Tier Certification Authority, where he performs audits and provides strategic- level consulting and Tier Certification reviews. Mr. Mescall’s career in critical facilities spans 12 years and includes responsibilities in planning, engineering, design, construction, and operation. Before joining Uptime Institute, Mr. Mescall was with IBM, where he operated its Boulder, CO, data center and led a worldwide team analyzing best practices across IBM data centers to ensure consistent, cost-effective reliability.Mr. Mescall holds a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California, a MS in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.
https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/19.jpg4751201Kevin Heslinhttps://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/uptime-institute-logo-r_240x88_v2023-with-space.pngKevin Heslin2014-11-26 12:17:192014-12-23 13:45:36Close Coupled Cooling and Reliability
The fourth annual Uptime Institute Data Center Industry Survey provides an overview of global industry trends by surveying 1,000 data center operators and IT practitioners. Uptime Institute collected responses via email February through April 2014 and presented preliminary results in May 2014 at the 9th Uptime Institute Symposium: Empowering the Data Center Professional.
https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/17-header.jpg4751201Kevin Heslinhttps://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/uptime-institute-logo-r_240x88_v2023-with-space.pngKevin Heslin2014-11-21 15:56:262015-07-24 08:54:12Annual Data Center Industry Survey 2014
The fourth annual Uptime Institute Data Center Industry Survey provides an overview of global industry trends by surveying 1,000 data center operators and IT practitioners. Uptime Institute collected responses via email February through April 2014 and presented preliminary results in May 2014 at the 9th Uptime Institute Symposium: Empowering the Data Center Professional. This document provides the full results and analysis.
I. Survey Demographics
Uptime Institute focused its analysis on the end-user survey respondents. The majority of survey participants are data center managers, followed by smaller percentages of IT managers and senior executives. The U.S. and Canada make up a significant portion of the response, with growing numbers of participants from around the globe.
About half of the end-user respondents work for third-party commercial data center companies (colocation or cloud computing providers), and the other half work for enterprises in vertical industries such as financial services (11%), manufacturing (7%), healthcare (4%), government (4%), and other industries (26%).
In various sections throughout this survey, the financial services industry’s responses have been broken out from those of traditional enterprise companies. Across multiple focus areas, the responses of financial services organizations differ significantly from those of other verticals.
Previous annual surveys in 2011, 2012, and 2013 showed that large organizations (defined in this context as companies managing over 5,000 servers) were adopting new technologies, outsourcing less-critical workloads, and pursuing energy efficiency goals much faster than smaller companies.
For 2014, we analyzed the results further and found that the data center maturity gap is not just a matter of size, but also specific to a single industry (banking). This difference is most likely due to the massive investment financial organizations have in IT, especially in relation to their overall cost structures. A financial organization’s efficiency at deploying IT correlates directly to its profitability in a way that may not be as obvious to other companies.
When the response profiles of the financial organizations and the colocation providers are compared, a pattern starts to emerge – both banks and colos run their data center operations as a business.
We will explore the implications of these parallels throughout the survey data.
II. Data center budgets
In each year’s survey, we ask participants to compare their organization’s current spending on data centers (including real estate, infrastructure equipment, staffing, operations, etc.) to the previous year. Every year, the answers to these questions reveal massive growth in the colocation and multi-tenant data center (MTDC) industry compared to enterprise spending.
In 2014, the vast majority of third-party data center respondents (86%) report receiving budget increases, versus 63% of financial firms and just 50% of the other enterprise companies. This gap is similar to the 2013 results: 77% of third-party respondents increased budget, versus just 47% of enterprise companies.
With half of all enterprises reporting stagnant or shrinking data center budgets and colocation operators reporting massive growth, our conclusion is that increasingly, enterprise data center workloads are shifting to third-party providers.
This is not to say that the enterprise data centers are going away any time soon. These organizations will continue to squeeze a return on their investments in enterprise data center assets. The value of a performing, fully or partially depreciated asset cannot be disregarded.
According to surveys from Uptime Institute’s executive programs, nearly every enterprise has chosen to host some percentage of its IT workloads off-premise, in a MTDC, cloud, or other third-party environment. Anecdotal reports to Uptime Institute lead us to believe this to be a fairly recent development (within the last 5 years).
Yet, while nearly every company is deploying off-premise computing, the percentage of workloads hosted in these environments appears to be fairly static as a percentage of overall compute. The figure below represents enterprise organizations’ IT deployment mix today, and projected deployment mix in 2014. This indicates that the growth trends in off-premise computing will continue as overall enterprise IT workloads continue to grow. This finding also indicates that there is no imminent rebound or recoil in the circular trend of outsourcing-insourcing-outsourcing commonly held in IT and other key enterprise functions such as call centers.
This report will delve into the drivers and decision-making challenges for enterprise IT organizations contracting MTDCs and cloud computing in Section IV.
III. IT Efficiency
A special focus in 2014’s survey is an assessment of the behaviors, management strategies, and technologies used to improve IT efficiency.
Over the past several years, Uptime Institute has documented the rise in adoption of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and the meager gains achieved by further pursuing that metric. Based on Uptime Institute’s field experience and feedback from the Uptime Institute Network (a user group of large data center owners and operators) around the world, enterprise IT executives are overly focused on PUE.
The vast majority (72%) of respondents measure PUE. Isolating the responses by job function, a huge percentage of executives (82%) are tracking that metric and reporting it to their corporate management.
PUE is an effective engineering ratio that data center facilities teams use to capture baseline data and track the results of efficiency improvements to mechanical and electrical infrastructure. It is also useful for design teams to compare equipment- or topology-level solutions. But as industry adoption of PUE has expanded, the metric is increasingly being misused as a methodology to cut costs and prove stewardship of corporate and/or environmental resources
In 2007, Uptime Institute surveyed its Network members, and found an average PUE of 2.50. The average PUE improved from 2.50 in 2007 to 1.89 in 2011 in Uptime Institute’s data center industry survey.
From 2011 to today, the average self-reported PUE has only improved from 1.89 to 1.7. The biggest infrastructure efficiency gains happened five years ago, and further improvements will require significant investment and effort, with increasingly diminishing returns.
The figure following represents adoption of various data center cooling approaches to improve efficiency. The low-capital cost approaches have largely been adopted by data center operators. And yet, executives pressure for further reduction in PUE. High-cost efficiency investments in technologies and design approaches may provide negative financial payback and zero improvement of systemic IT efficiency problems.
Many companies’ targets for PUE are far lower than their reported current state. By focusing on PUE, IT executives are spending effort and capital for diminishing returns and continue to ignore the underlying drivers of poor IT utilization.
For example, Uptime Institute estimates of 20% of servers in data centers are obsolete, outdated, or unused. Yet, very few survey respondents believe their server populations include comatose machines. Nearly half of survey respondents have no scheduled auditing to identify and remove unused hardware.
Historically, IT energy efficiency has been driven by data center facilities management. According to the Uptime Institute’s Annual Data Center Industry Survey (2011-2014), less than 20% of companies report that their IT departments pay the data center power bill, and the vast majority of companies allocate this cost to the facilities or real estate budgets.
This lopsided financial arrangement fosters unaccountable IT growth, inaccurate planning, and waste. This is why 67% of the senior IT executives believe comatose hardware is not a problem.
Uptime Institute launched the Server Roundup contest in October 2011 to raise awareness about the removal and recycling of comatose and obsolete IT equipment and reduce data center energy use. Uptime Institute invited companies around the globe to help address and solve this problem by participating in the Server Roundup, an initiative to promote IT and Facilities integration and improve data center energy efficiency.
In 2 years of participating in Server Roundup, the financial firm Barclays has removed nearly 15,000 servers and saved over US$10M. Server Roundup overwhelmingly proves that disciplined hardware decommissioning can provide a significant financial impact.
Yet despite these huge savings and intangible benefits to the overall IT organization, many firms are not applying the same level of diligence and discipline to a server decommissioning plan, as noted previously.
This is the crux of the data center efficiency challenge ahead—convincing more organizations of the massive return on investment in addressing IT instead of relentlessly pursuing physical infrastructure efficiency.
Organizations need to hold IT operations teams accountable to root out inefficiencies, of which comatose servers are only the most obvious and egregious example.
For nearly a decade, Uptime Institute has recommended enterprise IT executives take a holistic approach to significantly reduce the cost and resource consumption of compute infrastructure. That approach is outlined here.
IV. Enterprise Adoption of Third-Party Data Centers and IT Services
As stated earlier, nearly every enterprise organization is using some combination of in-house IT and off-premise computing. There are a number of drivers for this trend, including the ability to right-size deployments, lower the cost of investment, and getting IT workloads into production quickly.
So far, enterprise organizations have largely been satisfied with their experiences using multi-tenant data center providers. In fact, in this unverified and self-reported survey, the colocation operators report fewer outages than their enterprise counterparts.
Despite many enterprise organizations currently reporting satisfaction with colocation providers, the deployment to off-premise computing has not always been a smooth transition. In Uptime Institute’s experience, many large enterprise organizations historically ran their own data centers, and only recently started deploying into third-party sites at scale. The facilities and corporate real estate teams who are often responsible for managing these companies have limited experience in contract terms, service level agreements, pricing, and other challenges specific to an outsourced IT relationship.
In fact, the decision over whether to outsource an IT workload and where to host it typically comes from the IT department, and not the management team that ultimately holds responsibility for that contract.
The facilities managers and data center engineers are expected to become experts in third-party data center management on the fly—to learn on the job. All the while, the usage of third-party data center providers is rapidly expanding, and very few enterprises have formalized requirements for engaging with the MTDC market. A large percentage cannot track the cost of downtime for their organizations.
The vast majority of enterprise organizations are blasting workloads into off-premise computing environments, but they don’t know where they are going, or what their staff are supposed to do when they get there. Many organizations are making decisions on a very limited selection of criteria and inputs.
Ultimately, this was the primary reason Uptime Institute developed the FORCSS™ Methodology in 2012.
Uptime Institute FORCSS is a means to capture, compare, prioritize, and communicate the benefits, costs, and impacts of multiple IT deployment alternatives. Deployment alternatives may include owned/existing data centers, commercial data centers (wholesale, retail, colocation, managed service), or IaaS (including cloud) that is procured on a scale or limited basis.
FORCSS provides organizations with the flexibility to develop specific responses to varying organizational needs. A case study series will present the process of applying the FORCSS Factors to specific deployment options and present the outcome of the FORCSS Index—a concise structure that can be understood by non-IT executive management.
Enterprise companies are investing less in their own data centers. Instead, they are deploying their IT in off-premise data center environments. This trend goes back through the 4 years Uptime Institute has conducted this survey. This trend is leading to massive spending in the MTDC market. This spending does not show signs of abating.
Although more IT workloads are moving to third-party providers (especially new workloads), the enterprise-owned data center will continue to be responsible for much core IT production for the foreseeable future.
Enterprise organizations are satisfied with the performance of their current MTDC providers, but very few companies have the expertise or processes in place yet to manage or even make the most effective decisions about off-premise computing options.
As noted in previous years, IT efficiency efforts have largely been limited to data center facilities management and design teams. Very little work has been done to address the systemic IT inefficiencies that have plagued the industry for nearly a decade. But as senior executives push for more improvements in efficiency, many will realize they are running out of return on investment; hopefully, they will turn to improving IT utilization.
A large majority (75%) of survey participants said the data center industry needs a new energy efficiency metric.
Appendix
Additional 2014 survey responses:
i. If your organization has adopted Cold Aisle or Hot Aisle containment, approximately what percentage of your cabinets uses this design?
a. Less than 10% contained: 22%
b. 10-25% contained: 13%
c. 25-50% contained: 12%
d. 50% contained: 7%
e. 50-75% contained: 16%
f. 75-100% contained: 30%
ii. Would your organization consider a data center that did not include the following designs/technologies?
a. Raised floor: 52% yes
b. Mechanical cooling: 24% yes
c. Generator: 8% yes
d. Uninterruptible power supply: 7% yes
iii. Does management receive reports on data center energy costs?
a. Yes: 71%
b. No: 29%
iv. Does management set targets for reducing data center energy costs?
a. Yes: 54%
b. No: 46%
v. How does your organization measure PUE?
a. PUE Category 0: 30%
b. PUE Category 1: 25%
c. PUE Category 2: 19%
d. PUE Category 3: 11%
e. Alternative method: 8%
f. Don’t know: 7%
vi. Does your company report PUE publicly?
a. Yes; 10%
b. No; 90%
vii. Has your organization achieved environmental or sustainability certifications for any of its data centers?
a. Colo/MTDC: 35% yes
b. Financial Services: 46% yes
c. Other Enterprises: 21% yes
viii. Considering your company’s primary multi-tenant or colocation provider, what is the length of the commitment you have made to that provider?
a. Under 2 years
i. Financial Services: 28%
ii. Other Enterprise: 36%
b. 2-3 years
i. Financial Services: 11%
ii. Other Enterprise: 22%
c. 3-5 years
i. Financial Services: 30%
ii. Other Enterprise: 21%
d. Over 5 years
i. Financial Services: 32%
ii. Other Enterprise: 21%
ix. If your organization measures the cost of data center downtime, how do you use that information?
a. Report to management: 88%
b. Rationalize equipment purchases: 51%
c. Rationalize services purchases: 42%
d. Rationalize increased staff or staff training: 39%
e. Rationalize software purchases: 32%
x. Does your organization perform unscheduled drills that simulate data center emergencies?
a. Yes: 44%
b. No: 56%
xi. Considering your organization’s largest enterprise data center, what staffing model is used for facilities staff? a. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: 70%
b. Other: 30%
Email Uptime Institute Director of Content and Publications Matt Stansberry with any questions or feedback: [email protected].
This paper provides analysis and commentary of the Uptime Institute survey responses. Uptime Institute makes reasonable efforts to facilitate a survey that is reliable and relevant. All participant responses are assumed to be in good faith. Uptime Institute does not verify or endorse the responses of the participants; any claims to savings or benefits are entirely the representations of the survey participants.
https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/17-header.jpg4751201Kevin Heslinhttps://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/uptime-institute-logo-r_240x88_v2023-with-space.pngKevin Heslin2014-11-21 14:06:372014-11-25 07:56:392014 Data Center Industry Survey
Striking the appropriate balance between cost and reliability is a business decision that requires metrics
By Dr. Hussein Shehata
This paper focuses on cooling limitations of down-flow computer room air conditioners/air handlers (CRACs/CRAHs) with dedicated heat extraction solutions in high-density data center cooling applications. The paper also explains how higher redundancy can increase total cost of ownership (TCO) while supporting only very light loads and proposes a metric to help balance the requirements of achieving higher capacities and efficient space utilization.
With several vendors proposing passive high-density technologies (e.g., cabinet hot air removal as a total resolution to the challenge of high density), this analysis shows that such solutions are only possible for a select few cabinets in each row and not for full deployments.
The vendors claim that the technologies can remove heat loads exceeding 20 kilowatts (kW) per cabinet, but our study disproves that claim; passive-cooling units cannot extract more heat than the cold air supplied by the CRACs. For the efficient design of a data center, the aim is to increase the number of cabinets and the total IT load, with the minimal necessary supporting cooling infrastructure. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. The relationship between IT and supporting spaces
Passive Hot Air Removal
Data center design continually evolves towards increasing capacity and decreasing spatial volume, increasing energy density. High-end applications and equipment have higher energy density than standard equipment; however, the high-performance models of any technology have historically become the market standard with the passage of time, which in the case of the IT industry is a short period. As an example, every 3 years the world’s fastest supercomputers offer 10 times the performance of the previous generation, a trend that has been documented over the past 20 years.
Cooling high-density data centers is mostly commonly achieved by:
• Hot Air Removal (HAR) via cabinet exhaust ducts—active and passive.
See Figure 2.
Figure 2. HAR via cabinet exhaust ducts (active and passive). Courtesy APC
• Dedicated fan-powered cooling units (i.e., chilled water cabinets).
See Figure 3.
Figure 3. Dedicated fan-powered cooling units
This paper focuses on HAR/CRAC technology using an underfloor air distribution plenum.
Approach
High-density data centers require cooling units that are capable of delivering the highest cooling capacity using the smallest possible footprint. The high-powered CRACs in the smallest footprints available from the major manufacturer offer a net sensible cooling capacity of approximately 90 kW but require 3×1-meter (m) (width by depth) footprints. (Appendix C includes the technical specifications for the example CRAC).
Excluding a detailed heat load estimate and air efficiency distribution effectiveness, the variables of CRAC capacity, cabinet quantity, and cabinet capacity may be related in the following formula.
Note: The formula is simplified and focused on IT cooling requirements, excluding other loads such as lighting and solar gains.
CRAC Capacity = Number of IT cabinets x kW/cabinet (1)
Example 1 for N Capacity: If a 90-kW CRAC cools 90 cabinets, the
average cooling delivered per cabinet is 1 kW.
90 kW= 90 cabinets x 1 kW/cabinet (2)
Example 2 for N Capacity: If a 90-kW CRAC cools two cabinets, the
average cooling delivered per cabinet is 45 kW.
90 kW= 2 cabinets x 45 kW/cabinet (3)
The simplified methodology, however, does not provide practical insight into space usage and heat extraction capability. In Example 1, one CRAC would struggle to efficiently deliver air evenly to all 90 cabinets due to the practical constraints of CRAC airflow throw; in most circumstances the cabinets farthest from the CRAC would likely receive less air then the closer cabinets (assuming practical raised-floor heights and minimal obstructions to under floor airflow).
In Example 2, one CRAC would be capable of supplying sufficient cooling to both cabinets; however, the ratio of space utilization of the CRAC, service access space, and airflow throw buffer would result in a high space usage for the infrastructure compared to prime white space (IT cabinets). Other constraints, such as allocating sufficient perforated floor tiles/grills in case of a raised-floor plenum or additional Cold Aisle containment for maximum air distribution effectiveness may lead to extremely large Cold Aisles that again render the data center space utilization inefficient.
Appendix B includes a number of data center layouts generated to illustrate these concepts. The strategic layouts in this study considered maximum (18 m), average (14 m) and minimal (10 m) practical CRAC air throw, with CRACs installed perpendicular to cabinet rows on one and two sides as recommended in ASHRAE TC9.9. The front-to-back airflow cabinets are assumed to be configured to the best practice of Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle arrangement (See Figure 4). Variation in throw resulted in low, medium, and high cabinet count, best defined as high density, average density, and maximum packed (high number of cabinets) for the same data center whitespace area and electrical load (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. CRAC throw area
In the example layouts, CRACs were placed close together, with the minimal 500-millimeter (mm) maintenance space on one side and 1,000 mm on the long side (see Figure 6). Note that each CRAC manufacturer might have different unit clearance requirements. A minimal 2-m buffer between the nearest cabinet and each CRAC unit prevents entrainment of warm air into the cold air plenum. Cold and Hot aisle widths were modeled on approximately 1,000 mm (hot) and 1,200 mm (cold) as recommended in ASHRAE TC9.9 literature.
In the context of this study, CRAC footprint is defined as the area occupied by CRACs (including maintenance and airflow throw buffer); cabinet footprint is defined as the area occupied by cabinets (and their aisles). These two areas have been compared to analyze the use of prime footprint within the data center hall.
Tier level requires each and every power and cooling component and path to fulfill the Tier requirements; in the context of this paper the redundancy configuration reflects the Tier level of CRAC capacity components only, excluding considerations to other subsystems required for the facility’s operation. Tier I would not require redundant components, hence N CRAC units are employed. Tiers II, III, and IV would require redundant CRACs; therefore N+1 and N+2 configurations were also considered.
Figure 6. CRAC maintenance zone
A basic analysis shows that using a CRAC as described above would require a 14-m2 area (including throw buffer), which would generate 25.7 kW of cooling for every 1 m of active CRAC perimeter at N redundancy, 19.3 kW for one-sided N+1 redundancy and two-sided N+2 redundancy, 22.5 kW for two-sided N+1 redundancy, and 12.9 kW for one-sided N+2 redundancy. However, data center halls are not predominantly selected and designed based on perimeter length, but rather on floor area.
The study focused on identifying the area required by CRAC units, compared to that occupied by IT cabinets, and defines it as a ratio. Figure 7 shows Tier I (N) one-sided CRACs in a high-density cabinet configuration. Appendix A includes the other configuration models.
Furthermore, a metric has been derived to help determine the appropriate cabinet footprint at the required Tier level (considering CRAC redundancy only).
Figure 7. Tier 1 (N) one-sided CRACs in a high-density cabinet configuration
Cabinet capacity to footprint factor C2F= kw/cabinet / C2C (4)
Where CRAC to Cabinet factor C2C= CRAC footprint / Cabinet footprint (5)
For multiple layout configurations, the higher the C2F, the more IT capacity can be incorporated into the space. Higher capacity could be established by more cabinets at lower densities or by fewer cabinets at higher densities. However, the C2F is closely linked to the necessary CRAC footprint, which as analyzed in this paper, could be a major limiting factor (see Figure 8).
Figure 8. C2F versus cabinet load (kW) for various CRAC redundancies
Results
The detailed results appear in Appendix B. The variations analyzed included reference CRACs with no redundancy, with one redundant unit, and with two redundant units. For each of the CRAC configurations, three cabinet layouts were considered: maximum packed, average density, and high density).
Results showed that the highest C2F based on the six variations within each of the three redundancy configurations is as follows:
The noteworthy finding is that the highest C2F in all 18-modeled variations was for high-density implementation and at a CRAC-to-cabinet (C2C) area ratio of 0.46 (i.e., CRACs occupy 32% of the entire space) and a cabinet footprint of 2.3 m2 per cabinet. This is supporting evidence that, although high-density cabinets would require more cooling footprint, high density is the most efficient space utilization per kW of IT.
Example 3 illustrates how the highest C2F on a given CRAC redundancy and one- or two-sided layout may be utilized for sizing the footprint and capacity within an average-sized 186-m2 data center hall for a Tier II-IV (N+2, C2F=9.8, C2C=0.5, and cabinet footprint of 2.3 m2) deployment. The space is divided into a net 124-m2 data hall for cabinets, and 62 m2 of space for CRAC units by utilizing the resulting ideal C2C of 0.46.
Example 3: If a net 124-m2 data hall for cabinets and 62 m2 of space for CRAC units is available, the highest achievable capacity would be 4.5 kW/cabinet.
9.8= 4.5 kW/cabinet/59 m2 : 127 m2 (6)
To determine the number of cabinets and CRACs, the CRAC cooling capability will be used rather than the common method of dividing the area by cabinet footprint.
The total area occupied by a CRAC is 14 m2; hence approximately four CRACs would occupy the 59-m2 space. Two CRACs are duty, since N+2 is utilized; therefore, the available capacity would be 90 kW x 2 = 180 kW. The number of cabinets that could then be installed in this 186-m2 total area would be 180/4.5 = 40 cabinets.
The total effective space used by the 40 cabinets is 92 m2 (40 x 2.3 m2 ) that is 72% of the available cabinet dedicated area. This shows that higher redundancy may be resilient but does not fully utilize the space efficiently. This argument highlights the importance of the debate between resilience and space utilization.
Example 4 illustrates how C2F may be utilized for sizing the footprint and capacity within the same data center hall but at a lower redundancy of N+1 configuration.
Example 4: By applying the same methodology, the highest achievable capacity would be 5.2 kW/cabinet.
11.4= (7)
The total area occupied by a CRAC is 14 m2 (including CRAC throw and maintenance); hence approximately four CRACs would occupy 59 m2 of space. Three CRACs would be on duty, since N+1 is utilized; therefore, the available capacity would be 90 kW x 3 = 270 kW. The number of cabinets that could then be installed in this 186-m2 total area would be 270/5.2 = 52 cabinets.
The total effective space used by the 52 cabinets is 120 m2 (52 x 2.3 m2 ), which is 95% of the space. The comparison of Example 3 to Example 4 shows that less redundancy provides more efficient space utilization.
Figure 9. Summary of the results
The analysis shows that taking into consideration the maximum C2F results obtained for each redundancy type and then projecting output on a given average load per cabinet, an example average high-density cabinet of 20 kW would require the CRAC units to occupy double the IT cabinet space in an N+2 configuration, hence lowering the effective use of such prime IT floor space (See Figure 9).
Additional Metrics
Additional metrics for design purposes have been derived from the illustrated graphs and resultant formulae.
The derived formula could be documented as follows:
P=K/L+M-(6.4 x R/S) (8)
Where
P = Cooling per perimeter meter (kW/m)
K = CRAC net sensible capacity (kW)
L = CRAC length (m)
M = CRAC manufacturer side maintenance clearance (m)
R = CRAC redundancy
S = One- or two-sided CRAC layout
Conclusion
Approximately 50% (270 kW/180 kW) more capacity, 30% more cabinets, and 16% higher-cabinet load density could be utilized in the same space with only one redundant CRAC and may still fulfill Tier II-IV component redundancy requirements. This is achievable at no additional investment cost as the same number of CRACs (4) is installed within the same available footprint of 2,000 ft2. The analysis also showed that the highest average practical load per cabinet should not exceed 6 kW if efficient space utilization is sought by maintaining a C2C of 0.46.
This study shows that an average high-density cabinet load may not be cooled efficiently with the use of only CRACs or even with CRACs coupled with passive heat-extraction solutions. The data supports the necessary implementation of row- and cabinet-based active cooling for high-density data center applications.
The first supercomputers used cooling water; however, the low-density data centers that were commissioned closer to a decade ago (below 2 kW per cabinet) almost totally eliminated liquid cooling. This was due to reservations about the risks of water leakage within live, critical data centers.
Data centers of today are considered to be medium-density facilities. Some of these data centers average below 4 kW per cabinet. Owners and operators that have higher demands and are ahead of the average market typically dedicate only a portion of the data center space to high-density cabinets.
With server density increasing every day and high-density cabinets (approaching 40 kW and above) becoming a potential future deployment, data centers seem likely to experience soaring heat loads that will demand comprehensive liquid-cooling infrastructures.
With future high-density requirements, CRAC units may become secondary cooling support or even more drastically, CRAC units may become obsolete!
Appendix A5. Two-sided CRAC, average-throw, medium packed cabinets
Appendix A6. Two-sided CRAC, minimum-throw, high density cabinets
Appendix B
Appendix B1. Tier I (N) CRAC modeling results
Note 1: HD = High Density
Note 2: MP = Max Packed
Note 3: * = CRAC Area includes maintenance and throw buffer
Note 4:^ = 27 m2 area is deducted from total area, as it is already included in the throw buffer
Note 1: HD = High Density
Note 2: MP = Max Packed
Note 3: * = CRAC Area includes maintenance and throw buffer
Note 4: ^ = 27 m2 area is deducted from total area, as it is already included in the throw buffer
Liebert CRAC Technical Specification
Note: Net sensible cooling will be reduced by 7.5 kW x 3 = 22.5 kW for fans; 68.7 kW for Model DH/VH380A
Dr Hussein Shehata, BA, PhD, CEng, PGDip, MASHRAE, MIET, MCIBSE, is the technical director, EMEA, Uptime Institute Professional Services (UIPS). Dr Shehata is a U.K. Chartered Engineer who joined Uptime Institute Professional Services in 2011. He is based in Dubai, serving the EMEA region. From 2008-2011, Hussein was vice president & AsiaPacific DC Engineering, Architecture & Strategy Head at JP Morgan in Japan. Prior to that, he co-founded, managed, and operated as a subject matter expert (SME) at PTS Consulting Japan. He graduated in Architecture, followed by a PhD in HVAC, and a diploma in Higher Education that focused on multi-discipline teaching, with a focus on Engineers and Architects.
https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/10.jpg4751201Kevin Heslinhttps://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/uptime-institute-logo-r_240x88_v2023-with-space.pngKevin Heslin2014-11-11 12:44:382014-11-11 12:44:38Data Center Cooling: CRAC/CRAH redundancy, capacity, and selection metrics
By Olu Soluade, Robin Sloan, Willem Weber, and Philip Young
Figure 1. MTN Centurion Site
MTN’s new data center in Centurion, Johannesburg, South Africa, includes a 500-square-meter (m2) space to support MTN’s existing Pretoria Switch. MTN provides cellular telecommunications services, hosted data space, and operations offices via a network of regional switches. The Centurion Switch data center is a specialist regional center serving a portion of the smallest but most densely populated province of South Africa, Gauteng. The operational Centurion Switch Data Center provides energy efficient and innovative service to the MTN regional network (See Figure 1).
As part of the project, MTN earned Uptime Institute Tier III Design and Facility Certifications and the Carbon Credit application and approval by the Department of Energy-South Africa. Among other measures, MTN even deployed Novec 1230 fire-suppression gas to gain carbon credits from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). MTN Centurion is the first Uptime Institute Tier III Certified Design and Facility in South Africa. In addition, the facility became the first in South Africa to make use of the Kyoto Wheel to help it achieve its low PUE and energy-efficiency operations goals.
A modular design accommodates the 500-m2 white space and provides auxiliary services and functions to ensure a data center that meets MTN’s standards and specifications.
Space was also allocated for the future installation of:
Radio mast
RF room
Tri-generation plant
Solar systems
Wind banks
Electrical Services
The building is divided into 250 m2 of transmission space and 250 m2 of data space. Both spaces were designed to the following specifications.
Data cabinets at 6 kilowatt (kW)/cabinet
Transmission cabinets at 2.25 kW/cabinet
Maximum 12 cabinets per row
Primary backup power with rotary UPS run on biodiesel
In row dc PDUs (15 kW)
In row ac PDUs (40 kW)
Utility supply from Tshwane (CAI applied and got a connection of 8 mega volt-amperes)
25 percent of all energy consumed to be generated from on site renewable resources
Figure 2. External chiller plant
Heating, Ventilation, Air-conditioning
A specific client requirement was to build a facility that is completely off grid. As a result the design team conducted extensive research and investigated various types of refrigeration plants to determine which system would be the most efficient and cost effective.
The final technologies for the main areas include (see Figures 2-5):
Air-cooled chillers
Kyoto Wheel in main switch room
Chilled water down-blow air handling units in other rooms
Hot Aisle containment
The design for the data center facility began as a Tier IV facility, but the requirement for autonomous control caused management to target Tier III instead. However, the final plans incorporate many features that might be found in a Fault Tolerant facility.
Tables 1 and 2 describe the facility’s electrical load in great detail.
Green Technologies
Figure 3. Stainless steel cladded chilled water pipework.
The horizontal mounting of the coil of the Kyoto Wheel (See Figure 5 a-b) at MTN Centurion is a one of a kind. The company paid strict attention to installation details and dedicated great effort to the seamless architectural integration of the technology.
MTN chose the Kyoto Wheel (enthalpy wheel) to transfer energy between hot indoor returning air from the data center and outdoor air because the indirect heat exchange between hot return air and cooler outdoor air offers:
Free cooling/heat recovery
Reduced load on major plant
Lower running costs
Low risk of dust transfer
Figure 4. Ducted return air from cabinets in data space
Although the use of an enthalpy wheel in South Africa is rare (MTN Centurion is one of two installations known to the author), Southern African temperature conditions are very well suited to the use of air-side economizers. Nonetheless the technology has not been widely accepted in South Africa because of:
Aversion to technologies untested in the African market
Risk mitigation associated with dust ingress to the data center
Historically low data center operating temperatures (older equipment)
Historically low local energy costs
The tri-generation plant is one of the other green measures for the Centurion Switch. The tri-generation meets the base load of the switch.
Figure 5a. Kyoto Wheel installation
Figure 5b. Kyoto Wheel installation
MTN first employed a tri-generation plant at its head office of about four years ago (see Figures 6-8).
The data center also incorporates low-power, high-efficiency lighting, which is controlled by occupancy sensors and photosensors (see Figure 9).
Design Challenges
Table 1. Phase 1 Building 950 W/data cabinet and 1,950 W/switch rack at 12 cabinets/row 600-kW maximum per floor
MTN Centurion Switch experienced several challenges during design and construction and ultimately applied solutions that can be used on future projects:
The original Kyoto Wheel software was developed for the Northern Hemisphere. For this project, several changes were incorporated into the software for the Southern Hemisphere.
Dust handling in Africa varies from the rest world. Heavy dust requires heavy washable pre-filters and a high carrying capacity in-filtration media.
Table 2. Phase 1 Building SF – 2,050 W/data cabinet at 12 cabinets/row, 800 kW maximum per floor
The design team also identified three steps to encourage further use of airside economizers in South Africa:
Increased education to inform operators about the benefits of higher operating temperatures
Increased publicity to increase awareness of air-side economizers
Better explanations to promote understanding of dust risks and solutions
Innovation
Many features incorporated in the MTN facility are tried-and-true data center solutions. However, in addition to the enthalpy wheel, MTN employed modularity and distributed PDU technology for the first time in this project.
In addition, the Kyoto Wheel is used throughout HVAC design, but rarely at this scale and in this configuration. The use of this system, in this application, and the addition of the chilled water coils and water spray were the first within the MTN network and the first in South Africa.
Conclusion
MTN tirelessly pursues energy efficiency and innovation in all its data center designs. The MTN Centurion site is the first Tier III Certified Constructed Facility in South Africa and the first for MTN.
The future provision for tri-generation, photovoltaic, and wind installations are all items that promise to increase the sustainability of this facility.
Figure 6. Tri-generation plant room at MTN Head Office
Figure 7. Tri-generation gas engines at MTN Head Office
Figure 8. Tri-generation schematics at MTN Head Office
Figure 10. Data rack installation
Figure 11. Power control panels
Figure 12. External chilled water plant equipment
Olu Soluade started AOS Consulting Engineers in 2008. He holds a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering and a BSc. Hons. degree with Second Class upper in Mechanical Engineering. He is a professional engineer and professional construction project manager with 21 years of experience in the profession.
Robin Sloan is Building Services Manager at AOS Consulting Engineers. He is a mechanical engineer with 7 years of experience In education, healthcare, commercial, residential, retail and transportation building projects. His core competencies include project management, design works of railway infrastructure, education, commercial, and health-care projects from concept through to hand-over, HVAC systems, mechanical and natural ventilation, drainage, pipework services (gas, water and compressed air), control systems, and thermal modelling software.
Willem Weber is Senior Manager: Technical Infrastructure for MTN South Africa, the largest cellular operator in Africa. Mr. Weber was responsible for the initiation and development of the first methane tri-generation plant in South Africa, the first CSP cooling system using the Fresnel technology, the first Tier III Design and Constructed Facility certified by Uptime Institute in South Africa, utilizing the thermal energy wheel technology for cooling and tri-generation.
Philip Young is Building Services Manager at AOS Consulting Engineers and a professional electronic and mechanical engineer registered with ECSA (P Eng) with 10 years experience. Previously he was a project manager & engineer at WSP Group Africa (Pty) Ltd. Mr. Young is involved in design, feasibility studies, multidisciplinary technical and financial evaluations, Building Management Systems, and renewable energy.
https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MTN-cover-image.jpg4751201Kevin Heslinhttps://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/uptime-institute-logo-r_240x88_v2023-with-space.pngKevin Heslin2014-11-07 14:36:182014-11-07 14:36:18Cogeneration powers South Africa’s first Tier III Certified data center
Thinking Ahead Can Prevent the Mid-Life Energy Crisis in Data Centers
/in Design/by Kevin HeslinTurning back the clock at Barclays Americas’ data centers
By Jan van Halem and Frances Cabrera
Barclays is a major global financial services provider engaged in personal banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, and wealth and investment management with an extensive international presence in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Barclays has two major data centers in the northeastern United States with production environments that support the Americas region’s operations (see Figure 1). Barclays Corporate Real Estate Solutions (CRES) Engineering team manages the data centers, in close partnership with the Global Technology and Information Services (GTIS) team.
Both of Barclays Americas’ data centers are reaching 7 years old, but not showing their age—at least not energy wise. For the last 3 years, Barclays Americas’ engineering and IT teams have been on an energy-efficiency program to ensure that the company’s data center portfolio continues operating even more efficiently than originally commissioned.
Figure 1. Comparison of DC 1 and DC 2
By 2013, Barclays Americas’ two data centers had reduced their energy consumption by 8,000 (megawatt-hours (MWh) or 8%, which equates to 3,700 tons of carbon emissions avoided. In addition, the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of the largest data center dropped from an annual average of 1.63 to 1.54–earning it an Energy Star certification for 2013.
The Barclays Americas team pinpointed the following strategies for a three-pronged attack on energy inefficiency:
conditioning (CRAC) units and pumps
The goals were to:
Figure 2. Summary of initiatives implemented across the two data centers: 2010-present.
The team found considerable savings without having to make large capital investments or use complex solutions that would threaten the live data center environment (see Figure 2). The savings opportunities were all identified, tested, implemented, and validated using in-house resources with collaboration between the engineering and IT teams.
Background
In 2010, Barclays launched a Climate Action Programme, which has since been expanded into its 2015 Citizenship Plan. The program included a carbon reduction target of 4% by the end of 2013 from 2010 levels. The target spurred action among the regions to identify and implement energy conservation measures and created a favorable culture for the funding of initiatives. Due to energy initiatives like the data center programs put in place in the Americas, Barclays reduced its carbon emissions globally by 12% in 2012, meeting the target two years early. Barclays is now setting its sights on a further carbon reduction of 10% by 2015.
From the beginning, it was understood that any new data center energy initiatives in the Americas must take into account both IT and building operation considerations. CRES and GTIS worked together on research, testing, and mocking up these initiatives. Their findings were shared with the central teams at headquarters so that case studies could be developed to ensure that the successes can be used at other sites around the world.
Blowing Back the Years
Initially, the team focused on airflow management. The team successfully reduced CRAC unit fan speeds at DC 1 from 70% to 40% by raising temperature set points as recommended by ASHRAE TC9.9, replacing unneeded perforated tiles with solid tiles, and installing Cold Aisle containment. All these changes were implemented with no impact to equipment operation.
The first step, and the easiest, was to evaluate the initial fan speed of the CRAC units at DC 1, and reduce it from 70% to 58%, with no effect on performance. When the DCs were commissioned they were briefly operating at 55°F (15°C), which was quickly increased to 65°F (18°C). By 2010, the temperature set points in Cold Aisles were raised to 75°F (24°C) from 65°F (18°C) in both DC 1 and DC 2 as recommended by updated ASHRAE standard for data center cooling.
Next, Barclays’ teams turned to the perforated tiles. Perforated tiles in DC 1 were replaced with solid tiles. This reduced CRAC fan speeds from 58% to 50%, with no impact on Cold Aisle temperature conditions and equipment operation.
Finally, in 2011, the PDU aisles were retrofitted with containment doors, which further improved airflow efficiency. After the site teams researched various options and recommended a commercial product, an in-house crew completed the installation. The team opted to use an in-house personnel to avoid having external contractors working in a live environment, which meant that the IT operations team felt comfortable having trusted engineering staff in the server rooms. The engineering staff used its expertise and common sense to install the doors with no disturbance to the end users.
Figure 3. Energy savings attributed to cooling enhancements
The team chose not to extend the containment above the aisles. Using data from wireless temperature and humidity sensors located throughout the aisles, the team found that it could still achieve ~80% of the projected energy savings without having the containment reaching the ceiling and avoid the additional cost and potential issues with local fire codes.
With the doors installed, the teams continue monitoring temperatures through the sensors and can control airflow by adjusting CRAC fan speeds,which regulates the amount of supply air in the Cold Aisle to minimize the bypass overflow and ensure efficient air distribution. As a result, return air temperature increased, driving efficiency and allowing further fan speed reductions of 50% to 40%. Again, these reductions were achieved with no impact to operating conditions. Based on these successes, Cold Aisle containment was installed at DC 2 in 2014.
Figure 4. Available free cooling at DC 1 and DC 2
A curve based on manufacturer’s data and direct power readings for the CRAC units enabled the teams to calculate the power reductions associated with volume flow rate reductions As a result, they calculated that the airflow initiatives resulted in 3.6 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy annually across DC 1 and DC 2 (see Figure 3).
Staying Cool
DC 1’s primary cooling system is a water-cooled plant consisting of two 1,250-ton chillers and five cooling towers. DC 1 was designed to utilize free cooling technology that feeds condenser water from cooling towers into a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger then cools the building’s chilled water. In 2011, the CRES Engineering team embarked on an initiative to maximize the use of free cooling.
After reviewing operational parameters such as temperature, water flow, and cooling tower fan speeds, Barclays team made the following adjustments:
the water go through two units instead of one increased the efficiency of the heat exchange.
analyzing data from an electrical power monitoring system (EPMS). As a result, the volume of
condenser water was divided among multiple cooling tower units instead of all going into one.
free cooling is possible (see Figure 4).
Of the three strategies, it is hardest to directly measure and attribute energy savings to enhancing cooling operations, as the changes impact several parts of the cooling plant. Barclays used the EPMS to track power readings throughout the systems, particularly the cooling tower units. The EPMS enables PUE trending and shows the reduction of DC 1’s PUE overtime. Since 2011, it’s dropped 5% to an annual average of 1.54.
Driving Back Inefficiency
Figure 5. Savings attributed to VFDs
In 2013 the teams began an intensive review of VFD technology. They found that considerable energy savings were to be obtained by installing VFDs on several pieces of equipment such as air handlers in plant rooms and condenser water pumps in both DC 1 and DC 2. The VFDs control the speed of an existing AC induction motor. By reducing the speed on air handlers, the unit load can be adjusted to the existing heat load (see Figure 5).
The team focused on (36) 30-ton units throughout DC 1 that would yield positive energy and cost savings. Utility rebates further enhanced the business case. The VFDs were installed towards the end of 2013, and the business case applied to DC 2 for further installations in 2014.
Figure 6. Savings attributed to frequency reductions on AC motors
To calculate savings, direct power readings were taken at the CRAC units at intervals of 2 hertz (Hz) from 60 Hz to 30 Hz. As shown in Figure 6, reducing CRAC frequency from 60 Hz to 56 Hz reduced power demand by 19%. In addition, the fan motor will release less heat to the air further reducing cooling load.
Additional maintenance cost savings are achieved through the extension of the filter replacement cycle. The VFDs allow less air to go through the system increasing the life span of the system filters. Once fully implemented the VFD installations will save over 3.9 GWh of energy.
Data as the Fountain of Youth
Comprehensive monitoring systems in place across the two data centers provided data accessible by both the GTIS and CRES teams, enabling them to make the best, data-driven decisions. The use of the sites’ EPMS and branch circuit monitoring system (BCMS) enable the teams to pinpoint areas with the greatest energy-saving potential and work together to trial and implement initiatives.
Barclays uses the EPMS as a tool to monitor, measure, and optimize the performance of the electrical loads. It monitors critical systems such as HVAC equipment, electrical switchgear, etc. A dashboard displays trend data. For example, the team can trend the total UPS load and the total building load, which yields PUE, on a continuous, real-time basis.
In addition to the EPMS, the CRES and GTIS teams also use the BCMS to track energy use by server cabinet, remote power panel, and power distribution unit. This system is used for capacity planning and load balancing. In addition, the monitored cabinet loads are used to optimize the airflow in the Cold Aisles.
Conclusion
With the right level of collaboration between CRES and GTIS, the right data, and the right corporate environmental targets, the Barclays Americas’ team was able to find energy and cost savings in their data centers. By executing airflow management, enhanced cooling, and VFD strategies in the existing data centers, the team applied the latest standards and best practices to keep energy consumption at levels typical of new data centers. At 8 GWh lighter, with an Energy Star certification and a PUE that keeps dropping—these data centers are not showing their energy age.
Before joining Barclays, Mr. van Halem was with real estate organizations and held positions in facility management, construction management, and project management. Mr. van Halem has a BS degree in Marine Engineering from the Maritime Institute De Ruyter in Flushing, the Netherlands. He served as a marine engineer for 8 years in the Dutch Merchant Marine.
Before joining Barclays, Ms. Cabrera ran the ISO 14001 systems in North and South America for Canon USA and worked at various manufacturing companies in Rochester, NY, integrating environmental considerations into their operations and meeting regulations. Ms. Cabrera has a BS degree in Environmental Technology and a MS degree in Environmental, Health, and Safety Management from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Close Coupled Cooling and Reliability
/in Design/by Kevin HeslinAchieving Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant cooling using various close coupled cooling technologies
By Matt Mescall
Early mainframe computers were cooled by water at the chip level. Then, as computing moved to the distributed server model, air replaced water. Typically, data centers included perimeter computer room air condition (CRAC) units to supply cold air to a raised floor plenum and perforated floor tiles to deliver it to IT equipment. These CRAC units were either direct-expansion (DX) or chilled-water units (for simplicity, CRAC will be used to refer to either kind of unit). This arrangement worked for the past few decades while data centers were primarily occupied by low-density IT equipment (< 2-4 kilowatts [kW] per rack). However, as high-density racks become more common, CRAC units and a raised floor may not provide adequate cooling.
To address these situations, data center cooling vendors developed close coupled cooling (CCC). CCC technology includes in-row, in-rack, above–rack, and rear-door heat exchanger (RDHx) systems. Manufacturers typically recommend the use of a Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle arrangement for greater efficiency, which is a best practice for all data center operations. As rack density increased due to IT consolidation and virtualization, CCC moved from being a solution to an unusual cooling situation to being the preferred cooling method. Implemented properly, a CCC solution can meet the Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant requirements of a data center.
While an air handler may provide humidity control, the close coupled cooling solution provides the onlycooling for the IT equipment in a data center. Additionally, it is assumed that the reader understands how to design a direct-expansion or chilled-water CRAC based cooling system to meet Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements. This paper does not address Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements for a central cooling plant, only the CCC system in the data hall.
Meeting Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant Requirements
First, let’s clarify what is required for a Concurrently Maintainable (Tier III) and a Fault Tolerant (Tier IV) cooling system. This discussion is not a comprehensive description of all Concurrently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant requirements, but it provides the basis for the rest of the discussion in this paper.
A Concurrently Maintainable system must have redundant capacity components and independent distribution paths, which means that each and every capacity component and distribution path element can be taken out of service for maintenance, repair, or replacement without impacting the critical environment.
To meet this requirement, the system must have dry pipes (no flowing or pressurized liquid) to prevent liquid spills when maintaining pipes, joints, and valves. Draining a pipe while it is disassembled is allowed, but hot tapping and pipe freezing are not. A Fault Tolerant cooling system may look like a Concurrently Maintainable system, but it must also autonomously respond to failures, including Continuous Cooling, and compartmentalize the chilled-water and/or refrigerant pipes outside the room of use (typically the computer room).
There are several different types and configurations of CCC. For simplicity, this paper will break them into two groups, in-row and above–row, and RDHx. While there are other CCC solutions available, the same concepts can be used to provide a Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant design.
In-row and above-row CCC
When data center owners have a business requirement for a high density data center to be Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant, a CCC design poses special circumstances that do not exist with room-based cooling. First, airflow must be considered. A CRAC-unit-based cooling design that is Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant has N+R cooling units that provide cooling to the whole room. When a redundant unit is off for maintenance or suffers a fault, the IT equipment still receives cooling from the remaining CRAC units via the perforated tiles in the Cold Aisle. The cooling in any Cold Aisle is not affected when the redundant unit is offline. This arrangement allows for one or two redundant CRAC units in an entire room (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. CCC airflow considerations
CCC provides cooling to the specific Cold Aisle where the unit is located. In other words, CCC units cannot provide cooling to different Cold Aisles the way CRAC units can. Accordingly, the redundant CCC unit must be located in the aisle where the cooling is required. In addition to having sufficient redundant cooling in every Cold Aisle, distance from the cooling unit to the IT equipment must also be considered. In-row and above row cooling units typically can provide cold air for only a limited distance. The design must take into account the worst-case scenario during maintenance or a failure event.
After considering the number of units and their location in the Cold Aisle, design team must consider the method of cooling, which may be air-cooled direct expansion (DX), chilled water, or a pumped refrigerant. Air-cooled DX units aretypically matched with their own condenser units. Other than proper routing, piping for air-cooled DX units require no special considerations.
Piping to chilled-water units is either traditional chilled-water piping or a cooling distribution unit (CDU). In the former method chilled water is piped directly to CCC units, similar to CRAC units. In this case, chilled-water piping systems are designed to be Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant in the same way as single-coil, room-based CRAC units.
The latter method, which uses CDUs, poses a number of special considerations. Again, chilled-water piping to a CDU and to single-coil, room-based CRAC units is designed to be Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant in the same way. However, designers must consider the impact to each Cold Aisle when a CDU is removed from service or suffers a fault.
If any single CDU provides cooling to more than the redundant number of cooling units in any aisle, the design is not Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant. When CDUs are located outside of the server room or data hall in a Fault Tolerant design, they must be properly compartmentalized so that a single event does not remove more than the redundant number of cooling units from service. A Fault Tolerant system also requires Continuous Cooling, the ability to detect, isolate, and contain a fault, and sustain operations. In a CCC system that rejects heat to a chilled-water system, the mechanical part of Continuous Cooling can be met with an appropriate thermal storage tank system that is part of a central plant.
A CCC system that rejects heat to outside air via refrigerant and a condenser will likely rely on uninterrupted power to provide Continuous Cooling which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
Some CCC systems use pumped refrigerant. These systems transfer heat from pumped refrigerant to a building’s chilled-water system, a glycol system, or an external condenser unit.
Due to the similarities between chilled-water and glycol systems with respect to the piping headers, glycol and chilled water systems will be treated the same for purposes of this paper.. The heat transfer occurs at an in-room chiller or heat exchanger that, for the purposes of this discussion, is similar to a CDU. The Con- currently Maintainable and Fault Tolerant design considerations for a pumped refrigerant system are the same as a chilled-water system that uses a CDU.
The system that powers all CCC components must be designed to ensure that the electrical system does not defeat the Concurrent Maintainability or Fault Tolerance of the mechanical system. In a Concurrently Maintainable mechanical system electrical design, no more than the redundant number of cooling units may be removed from service when any part of the electrical system is removed from service in a planned manner. This requirement includes the cooling within any aisle, not just the room as a whole. Designing the CCC units and the associated CDUs, in-room chillers, or heat exchangers in a 2N configuration greatly simplifies the electrical distribution.
Providing an A feed to half of the units and a B feed to the other half of the units while paying attention to the distribution of the CCC units, will typically provide a Concurrently Maintainable electrical design.
If the cooling system is in an N+R configuration, the distribution of the power sources will require special coordination. Typically, the units will be dual fed, which can be accomplished by utilizing an internal transfer switch n the units, an external manual transfer switch, or an external automatic transfer switch. This requirement applies to all components of the CCC system that require power to cool the critical space, including the in-row and above-row units, the in-room chillers, heat exchangers, and any power that is required for CDUs (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. CCC valve scenario
When any part of a Fault Tolerant electrical design for a mechanical system experiences a fault no more than the redundant number of cooling units may be removed from service. The same Concurrently Maintainable concepts apply to a Fault Tolerant electrical system; however, all of the transfer switches must be automatic and cannot rely on human intervention to respond to a fault. Additionally, in order to provide Continuous Cooling, uninterruptible power must be provided for cooling fans, in-room chillers and heat exchangers, pumps, and CDUs. A CCC system that uses DX and condensers to reject heat to outside air will require uninterrupted power to all system components to achieve Continuous Cooling.
The controls for these systems must also be considered in the design and meet the appropriate Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements.
RDHx
The requirements for a Concurrently Maintainable or Fault Tolerant RDHx cooling solution are similar to those for in-row cooling. The RDHx units typically use chilled water or a pumped refrigerant and CDUs, in-room chillers, or heat exchangers. These units need to meet all of the Concurrent Maintainability
or Fault Tolerant requirements of in-row CCC units. Airflow when a door is removed from service for either a planned event or due to a failure is a major consideration. When an RDHx solution cools an entire data center, it may be configured in a front-to-back rack configuration. When one or more doors are removed from service, the affected racks will blow hot exhaust air into the racks behind them, which may cause them to overheat, depending on the heat load.
This configuration does not meet Concurrent Maintainability or Fault Tolerant requirements, which require that the cooling system provide N cooling to all critical equipment during a planned maintenance event or a failure. Placing the racks in a Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle configuration may not meet this requirement as exhaust air from the affected rack may circulate over its top from the Hot Aisle and overheat the servers at the top of the rack and possibly adjacent racks. The same airflow issue is possible for racks placed at the end of rows when their RDHx is not working.
Summary
Using CCC as the only form of cooling in the data center is becoming more common. CCC provides additional challenges to meet Concurrent Maintainability and Fault Tolerant requirements beyond those typically experienced with a CRAC-based cooling system. The challenges of different airflow, when compared to room- based CRACs, and ensuring that the consequential impact of maintenance and failures on the additional capacity components and distribution systems do not remove more than the redundant number of units from service can be met with careful consideration when designing all parts of the CCC system.
Matt Mescall
Matthew Mescall, PE, is a senior consultant for Uptime Institute Professional Services and Tier Certification Authority, where he performs audits and provides strategic- level consulting and Tier Certification reviews. Mr. Mescall’s career in critical facilities spans 12 years and includes responsibilities in planning, engineering, design, construction, and operation. Before joining Uptime Institute, Mr. Mescall was with IBM, where he operated its Boulder, CO, data center and led a worldwide team analyzing best practices across IBM data centers to ensure consistent, cost-effective reliability.Mr. Mescall holds a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California, a MS in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.
Annual Data Center Industry Survey 2014
/in Design, Executive, Operations/by Kevin HeslinTo immediately access the full report, please provide your business contact information.
2014 Data Center Industry Survey
/in Private/by Kevin HeslinThe fourth annual Uptime Institute Data Center Industry Survey provides an overview of global industry trends by surveying 1,000 data center operators and IT practitioners. Uptime Institute collected responses via email February through April 2014 and presented preliminary results in May 2014 at the 9th Uptime Institute Symposium: Empowering the Data Center Professional. This document provides the full results and analysis.
I. Survey Demographics
Uptime Institute focused its analysis on the end-user survey respondents. The majority of survey participants are data center managers, followed by smaller percentages of IT managers and senior executives. The U.S. and Canada make up a significant portion of the response, with growing numbers of participants from around the globe.
About half of the end-user respondents work for third-party commercial data center companies (colocation or cloud computing providers), and the other half work for enterprises in vertical industries such as financial services (11%), manufacturing (7%), healthcare (4%), government (4%), and other industries (26%).
In various sections throughout this survey, the financial services industry’s responses have been broken out from those of traditional enterprise companies. Across multiple focus areas, the responses of financial services organizations differ significantly from those of other verticals.
Previous annual surveys in 2011, 2012, and 2013 showed that large organizations (defined in this context as companies managing over 5,000 servers) were adopting new technologies, outsourcing less-critical workloads, and pursuing energy efficiency goals much faster than smaller companies.
For 2014, we analyzed the results further and found that the data center maturity gap is not just a matter of size, but also specific to a single industry (banking). This difference is most likely due to the massive investment financial organizations have in IT, especially in relation to their overall cost structures. A financial organization’s efficiency at deploying IT correlates directly to its profitability in a way that may not be as obvious to other companies.
When the response profiles of the financial organizations and the colocation providers are compared, a pattern starts to emerge – both banks and colos run their data center operations as a business.
We will explore the implications of these parallels throughout the survey data.
II. Data center budgets
In each year’s survey, we ask participants to compare their organization’s current spending on data centers (including real estate, infrastructure equipment, staffing, operations, etc.) to the previous year. Every year, the answers to these questions reveal massive growth in the colocation and multi-tenant data center (MTDC) industry compared to enterprise spending.
In 2014, the vast majority of third-party data center respondents (86%) report receiving budget increases, versus 63% of financial firms and just 50% of the other enterprise companies. This gap is similar to the 2013 results: 77% of third-party respondents increased budget, versus just 47% of enterprise companies.
With half of all enterprises reporting stagnant or shrinking data center budgets and colocation operators reporting massive growth, our conclusion is that increasingly, enterprise data center workloads are shifting to third-party providers.
This is not to say that the enterprise data centers are going away any time soon. These organizations will continue to squeeze a return on their investments in enterprise data center assets. The value of a performing, fully or partially depreciated asset cannot be disregarded.
According to surveys from Uptime Institute’s executive programs, nearly every enterprise has chosen to host some percentage of its IT workloads off-premise, in a MTDC, cloud, or other third-party environment. Anecdotal reports to Uptime Institute lead us to believe this to be a fairly recent development (within the last 5 years).
Yet, while nearly every company is deploying off-premise computing, the percentage of workloads hosted in these environments appears to be fairly static as a percentage of overall compute. The figure below represents enterprise organizations’ IT deployment mix today, and projected deployment mix in 2014. This indicates that the growth trends in off-premise computing will continue as overall enterprise IT workloads continue to grow. This finding also indicates that there is no imminent rebound or recoil in the circular trend of outsourcing-insourcing-outsourcing commonly held in IT and other key enterprise functions such as call centers.
This report will delve into the drivers and decision-making challenges for enterprise IT organizations contracting MTDCs and cloud computing in Section IV.
III. IT Efficiency
A special focus in 2014’s survey is an assessment of the behaviors, management strategies, and technologies used to improve IT efficiency.
Over the past several years, Uptime Institute has documented the rise in adoption of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and the meager gains achieved by further pursuing that metric. Based on Uptime Institute’s field experience and feedback from the Uptime Institute Network (a user group of large data center owners and operators) around the world, enterprise IT executives are overly focused on PUE.
The vast majority (72%) of respondents measure PUE. Isolating the responses by job function, a huge percentage of executives (82%) are tracking that metric and reporting it to their corporate management.
PUE is an effective engineering ratio that data center facilities teams use to capture baseline data and track the results of efficiency improvements to mechanical and electrical infrastructure. It is also useful for design teams to compare equipment- or topology-level solutions. But as industry adoption of PUE has expanded, the metric is increasingly being misused as a methodology to cut costs and prove stewardship of corporate and/or environmental resources
In 2007, Uptime Institute surveyed its Network members, and found an average PUE of 2.50. The average PUE improved from 2.50 in 2007 to 1.89 in 2011 in Uptime Institute’s data center industry survey.
From 2011 to today, the average self-reported PUE has only improved from 1.89 to 1.7. The biggest infrastructure efficiency gains happened five years ago, and further improvements will require significant investment and effort, with increasingly diminishing returns.
The figure following represents adoption of various data center cooling approaches to improve efficiency. The low-capital cost approaches have largely been adopted by data center operators. And yet, executives pressure for further reduction in PUE. High-cost efficiency investments in technologies and design approaches may provide negative financial payback and zero improvement of systemic IT efficiency problems.
Many companies’ targets for PUE are far lower than their reported current state. By focusing on PUE, IT executives are spending effort and capital for diminishing returns and continue to ignore the underlying drivers of poor IT utilization.
For example, Uptime Institute estimates of 20% of servers in data centers are obsolete, outdated, or unused. Yet, very few survey respondents believe their server populations include comatose machines. Nearly half of survey respondents have no scheduled auditing to identify and remove unused hardware.
Historically, IT energy efficiency has been driven by data center facilities management. According to the Uptime Institute’s Annual Data Center Industry Survey (2011-2014), less than 20% of companies report that their IT departments pay the data center power bill, and the vast majority of companies allocate this cost to the facilities or real estate budgets.
This lopsided financial arrangement fosters unaccountable IT growth, inaccurate planning, and waste. This is why 67% of the senior IT executives believe comatose hardware is not a problem.
Uptime Institute launched the Server Roundup contest in October 2011 to raise awareness about the removal and recycling of comatose and obsolete IT equipment and reduce data center energy use. Uptime Institute invited companies around the globe to help address and solve this problem by participating in the Server Roundup, an initiative to promote IT and Facilities integration and improve data center energy efficiency.
In 2 years of participating in Server Roundup, the financial firm Barclays has removed nearly 15,000 servers and saved over US$10M. Server Roundup overwhelmingly proves that disciplined hardware decommissioning can provide a significant financial impact.
Yet despite these huge savings and intangible benefits to the overall IT organization, many firms are not applying the same level of diligence and discipline to a server decommissioning plan, as noted previously.
This is the crux of the data center efficiency challenge ahead—convincing more organizations of the massive return on investment in addressing IT instead of relentlessly pursuing physical infrastructure efficiency.
Organizations need to hold IT operations teams accountable to root out inefficiencies, of which comatose servers are only the most obvious and egregious example.
For nearly a decade, Uptime Institute has recommended enterprise IT executives take a holistic approach to significantly reduce the cost and resource consumption of compute infrastructure. That approach is outlined here.
IV. Enterprise Adoption of Third-Party Data Centers and IT Services
As stated earlier, nearly every enterprise organization is using some combination of in-house IT and off-premise computing. There are a number of drivers for this trend, including the ability to right-size deployments, lower the cost of investment, and getting IT workloads into production quickly.
So far, enterprise organizations have largely been satisfied with their experiences using multi-tenant data center providers. In fact, in this unverified and self-reported survey, the colocation operators report fewer outages than their enterprise counterparts.
Despite many enterprise organizations currently reporting satisfaction with colocation providers, the deployment to off-premise computing has not always been a smooth transition. In Uptime Institute’s experience, many large enterprise organizations historically ran their own data centers, and only recently started deploying into third-party sites at scale. The facilities and corporate real estate teams who are often responsible for managing these companies have limited experience in contract terms, service level agreements, pricing, and other challenges specific to an outsourced IT relationship.
In fact, the decision over whether to outsource an IT workload and where to host it typically comes from the IT department, and not the management team that ultimately holds responsibility for that contract.
The facilities managers and data center engineers are expected to become experts in third-party data center management on the fly—to learn on the job. All the while, the usage of third-party data center providers is rapidly expanding, and very few enterprises have formalized requirements for engaging with the MTDC market. A large percentage cannot track the cost of downtime for their organizations.
The vast majority of enterprise organizations are blasting workloads into off-premise computing environments, but they don’t know where they are going, or what their staff are supposed to do when they get there. Many organizations are making decisions on a very limited selection of criteria and inputs.
Uptime Institute FORCSS is a means to capture, compare, prioritize, and communicate the benefits, costs, and impacts of multiple IT deployment alternatives. Deployment alternatives may include owned/existing data centers, commercial data centers (wholesale, retail, colocation, managed service), or IaaS (including cloud) that is procured on a scale or limited basis.
FORCSS provides organizations with the flexibility to develop specific responses to varying organizational needs. A case study series will present the process of applying the FORCSS Factors to specific deployment options and present the outcome of the FORCSS Index—a concise structure that can be understood by non-IT executive management.
Please refer to the FORCSS Introduction and FORCSS Case Study 1.
Conclusions
Appendix
Additional 2014 survey responses:
i. If your organization has adopted Cold Aisle or Hot Aisle containment, approximately what percentage of your cabinets uses this design?
a. Less than 10% contained: 22%
b. 10-25% contained: 13%
c. 25-50% contained: 12%
d. 50% contained: 7%
e. 50-75% contained: 16%
f. 75-100% contained: 30%
ii. Would your organization consider a data center that did not include the following designs/technologies?
a. Raised floor: 52% yes
b. Mechanical cooling: 24% yes
c. Generator: 8% yes
d. Uninterruptible power supply: 7% yes
iii. Does management receive reports on data center energy costs?
a. Yes: 71%
b. No: 29%
iv. Does management set targets for reducing data center energy costs?
a. Yes: 54%
b. No: 46%
v. How does your organization measure PUE?
a. PUE Category 0: 30%
b. PUE Category 1: 25%
c. PUE Category 2: 19%
d. PUE Category 3: 11%
e. Alternative method: 8%
f. Don’t know: 7%
vi. Does your company report PUE publicly?
a. Yes; 10%
b. No; 90%
vii. Has your organization achieved environmental or sustainability certifications for any of its data centers?
a. Colo/MTDC: 35% yes
b. Financial Services: 46% yes
c. Other Enterprises: 21% yes
viii. Considering your company’s primary multi-tenant or colocation provider, what is the length of the commitment you have made to that provider?
a. Under 2 years
i. Financial Services: 28%
ii. Other Enterprise: 36%
b. 2-3 years
i. Financial Services: 11%
ii. Other Enterprise: 22%
c. 3-5 years
i. Financial Services: 30%
ii. Other Enterprise: 21%
d. Over 5 years
i. Financial Services: 32%
ii. Other Enterprise: 21%
ix. If your organization measures the cost of data center downtime, how do you use that information?
a. Report to management: 88%
b. Rationalize equipment purchases: 51%
c. Rationalize services purchases: 42%
d. Rationalize increased staff or staff training: 39%
e. Rationalize software purchases: 32%
x. Does your organization perform unscheduled drills that simulate data center emergencies?
a. Yes: 44%
b. No: 56%
xi. Considering your organization’s largest enterprise data center, what staffing model is used for facilities staff?
a. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: 70%
b. Other: 30%
Email Uptime Institute Director of Content and Publications Matt Stansberry with any questions or feedback: [email protected].
This paper provides analysis and commentary of the Uptime Institute survey responses. Uptime Institute makes reasonable efforts to facilitate a survey that is reliable and relevant. All participant responses are assumed to be in good faith. Uptime Institute does not verify or endorse the responses of the participants; any claims to savings or benefits are entirely the representations of the survey participants.
Data Center Cooling: CRAC/CRAH redundancy, capacity, and selection metrics
/in Executive/by Kevin HeslinStriking the appropriate balance between cost and reliability is a business decision that requires metrics
By Dr. Hussein Shehata
This paper focuses on cooling limitations of down-flow computer room air conditioners/air handlers (CRACs/CRAHs) with dedicated heat extraction solutions in high-density data center cooling applications. The paper also explains how higher redundancy can increase total cost of ownership (TCO) while supporting only very light loads and proposes a metric to help balance the requirements of achieving higher capacities and efficient space utilization.
With several vendors proposing passive high-density technologies (e.g., cabinet hot air removal as a total resolution to the challenge of high density), this analysis shows that such solutions are only possible for a select few cabinets in each row and not for full deployments.
The vendors claim that the technologies can remove heat loads exceeding 20 kilowatts (kW) per cabinet, but our study disproves that claim; passive-cooling units cannot extract more heat than the cold air supplied by the CRACs. For the efficient design of a data center, the aim is to increase the number of cabinets and the total IT load, with the minimal necessary supporting cooling infrastructure. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. The relationship between IT and supporting spaces
Passive Hot Air Removal
Data center design continually evolves towards increasing capacity and decreasing spatial volume, increasing energy density. High-end applications and equipment have higher energy density than standard equipment; however, the high-performance models of any technology have historically become the market standard with the passage of time, which in the case of the IT industry is a short period. As an example, every 3 years the world’s fastest supercomputers offer 10 times the performance of the previous generation, a trend that has been documented over the past 20 years.
Cooling high-density data centers is mostly commonly achieved by:
• Hot Air Removal (HAR) via cabinet exhaust ducts—active and passive.
See Figure 2.
Figure 2. HAR via cabinet exhaust ducts (active and passive). Courtesy APC
• Dedicated fan-powered cooling units (i.e., chilled water cabinets).
See Figure 3.
Figure 3. Dedicated fan-powered cooling units
This paper focuses on HAR/CRAC technology using an underfloor air distribution plenum.
Approach
High-density data centers require cooling units that are capable of delivering the highest cooling capacity using the smallest possible footprint. The high-powered CRACs in the smallest footprints available from the major manufacturer offer a net sensible cooling capacity of approximately 90 kW but require 3×1-meter (m) (width by depth) footprints. (Appendix C includes the technical specifications for the example CRAC).
Excluding a detailed heat load estimate and air efficiency distribution effectiveness, the variables of CRAC capacity, cabinet quantity, and cabinet capacity may be related in the following formula.
Note: The formula is simplified and focused on IT cooling requirements, excluding other loads such as lighting and solar gains.
CRAC Capacity = Number of IT cabinets x kW/cabinet (1)
Example 1 for N Capacity: If a 90-kW CRAC cools 90 cabinets, the
average cooling delivered per cabinet is 1 kW.
90 kW= 90 cabinets x 1 kW/cabinet (2)
Example 2 for N Capacity: If a 90-kW CRAC cools two cabinets, the
average cooling delivered per cabinet is 45 kW.
90 kW= 2 cabinets x 45 kW/cabinet (3)
The simplified methodology, however, does not provide practical insight into space usage and heat extraction capability. In Example 1, one CRAC would struggle to efficiently deliver air evenly to all 90 cabinets due to the practical constraints of CRAC airflow throw; in most circumstances the cabinets farthest from the CRAC would likely receive less air then the closer cabinets (assuming practical raised-floor heights and minimal obstructions to under floor airflow).
In Example 2, one CRAC would be capable of supplying sufficient cooling to both cabinets; however, the ratio of space utilization of the CRAC, service access space, and airflow throw buffer would result in a high space usage for the infrastructure compared to prime white space (IT cabinets). Other constraints, such as allocating sufficient perforated floor tiles/grills in case of a raised-floor plenum or additional Cold Aisle containment for maximum air distribution effectiveness may lead to extremely large Cold Aisles that again render the data center space utilization inefficient.
Figure 4. Typical Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle arrangement (ASHRAE TC9.9)
Appendix B includes a number of data center layouts generated to illustrate these concepts. The strategic layouts in this study considered maximum (18 m), average (14 m) and minimal (10 m) practical CRAC air throw, with CRACs installed perpendicular to cabinet rows on one and two sides as recommended in ASHRAE TC9.9. The front-to-back airflow cabinets are assumed to be configured to the best practice of Cold Aisle/Hot Aisle arrangement (See Figure 4). Variation in throw resulted in low, medium, and high cabinet count, best defined as high density, average density, and maximum packed (high number of cabinets) for the same data center whitespace area and electrical load (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. CRAC throw area
In the example layouts, CRACs were placed close together, with the minimal 500-millimeter (mm) maintenance space on one side and 1,000 mm on the long side (see Figure 6). Note that each CRAC manufacturer might have different unit clearance requirements. A minimal 2-m buffer between the nearest cabinet and each CRAC unit prevents entrainment of warm air into the cold air plenum. Cold and Hot aisle widths were modeled on approximately 1,000 mm (hot) and 1,200 mm (cold) as recommended in ASHRAE TC9.9 literature.
In the context of this study, CRAC footprint is defined as the area occupied by CRACs (including maintenance and airflow throw buffer); cabinet footprint is defined as the area occupied by cabinets (and their aisles). These two areas have been compared to analyze the use of prime footprint within the data center hall.
Tier level requires each and every power and cooling component and path to fulfill the Tier requirements; in the context of this paper the redundancy configuration reflects the Tier level of CRAC capacity components only, excluding considerations to other subsystems required for the facility’s operation. Tier I would not require redundant components, hence N CRAC units are employed. Tiers II, III, and IV would require redundant CRACs; therefore N+1 and N+2 configurations were also considered.
Figure 6. CRAC maintenance zone
A basic analysis shows that using a CRAC as described above would require a 14-m2 area (including throw buffer), which would generate 25.7 kW of cooling for every 1 m of active CRAC perimeter at N redundancy, 19.3 kW for one-sided N+1 redundancy and two-sided N+2 redundancy, 22.5 kW for two-sided N+1 redundancy, and 12.9 kW for one-sided N+2 redundancy. However, data center halls are not predominantly selected and designed based on perimeter length, but rather on floor area.
The study focused on identifying the area required by CRAC units, compared to that occupied by IT cabinets, and defines it as a ratio. Figure 7 shows Tier I (N) one-sided CRACs in a high-density cabinet configuration. Appendix A includes the other configuration models.
Furthermore, a metric has been derived to help determine the appropriate cabinet footprint at the required Tier level (considering CRAC redundancy only).
Figure 7. Tier 1 (N) one-sided CRACs in a high-density cabinet configuration
Cabinet capacity to footprint factor C2F= kw/cabinet / C2C (4)
Where CRAC to Cabinet factor C2C= CRAC footprint / Cabinet footprint (5)
For multiple layout configurations, the higher the C2F, the more IT capacity can be incorporated into the space. Higher capacity could be established by more cabinets at lower densities or by fewer cabinets at higher densities. However, the C2F is closely linked to the necessary CRAC footprint, which as analyzed in this paper, could be a major limiting factor (see Figure 8).
Figure 8. C2F versus cabinet load (kW) for various CRAC redundancies
Results
The detailed results appear in Appendix B. The variations analyzed included reference CRACs with no redundancy, with one redundant unit, and with two redundant units. For each of the CRAC configurations, three cabinet layouts were considered: maximum packed, average density, and high density).
Results showed that the highest C2F based on the six variations within each of the three redundancy configurations is as follows:
• Tier I (N)–one-sided CRAC deployment: C2F = 13
• Tier II-IV (N+1)–two-sided CRAC deployment: C2F = 11.4
• Tier II-IV (N+2 and above)–two-sided CRAC deployment: C2F = 9.8
The noteworthy finding is that the highest C2F in all 18-modeled variations was for high-density implementation and at a CRAC-to-cabinet (C2C) area ratio of 0.46 (i.e., CRACs occupy 32% of the entire space) and a cabinet footprint of 2.3 m2 per cabinet. This is supporting evidence that, although high-density cabinets would require more cooling footprint, high density is the most efficient space utilization per kW of IT.
Example 3 illustrates how the highest C2F on a given CRAC redundancy and one- or two-sided layout may be utilized for sizing the footprint and capacity within an average-sized 186-m2 data center hall for a Tier II-IV (N+2, C2F=9.8, C2C=0.5, and cabinet footprint of 2.3 m2) deployment. The space is divided into a net 124-m2 data hall for cabinets, and 62 m2 of space for CRAC units by utilizing the resulting ideal C2C of 0.46.
Example 3: If a net 124-m2 data hall for cabinets and 62 m2 of space for CRAC units is available, the highest achievable capacity would be 4.5 kW/cabinet.
9.8= 4.5 kW/cabinet/59 m2 : 127 m2 (6)
To determine the number of cabinets and CRACs, the CRAC cooling capability will be used rather than the common method of dividing the area by cabinet footprint.
The total area occupied by a CRAC is 14 m2; hence approximately four CRACs would occupy the 59-m2 space. Two CRACs are duty, since N+2 is utilized; therefore, the available capacity would be 90 kW x 2 = 180 kW. The number of cabinets that could then be installed in this 186-m2 total area would be 180/4.5 = 40 cabinets.
The total effective space used by the 40 cabinets is 92 m2 (40 x 2.3 m2 ) that is 72% of the available cabinet dedicated area. This shows that higher redundancy may be resilient but does not fully utilize the space efficiently. This argument highlights the importance of the debate between resilience and space utilization.
Example 4 illustrates how C2F may be utilized for sizing the footprint and capacity within the same data center hall but at a lower redundancy of N+1 configuration.
Example 4: By applying the same methodology, the highest achievable capacity would be 5.2 kW/cabinet.
11.4= (7)
The total area occupied by a CRAC is 14 m2 (including CRAC throw and maintenance); hence approximately four CRACs would occupy 59 m2 of space. Three CRACs would be on duty, since N+1 is utilized; therefore, the available capacity would be 90 kW x 3 = 270 kW. The number of cabinets that could then be installed in this 186-m2 total area would be 270/5.2 = 52 cabinets.
The total effective space used by the 52 cabinets is 120 m2 (52 x 2.3 m2 ), which is 95% of the space. The comparison of Example 3 to Example 4 shows that less redundancy provides more efficient space utilization.
Figure 9. Summary of the results
The analysis shows that taking into consideration the maximum C2F results obtained for each redundancy type and then projecting output on a given average load per cabinet, an example average high-density cabinet of 20 kW would require the CRAC units to occupy double the IT cabinet space in an N+2 configuration, hence lowering the effective use of such prime IT floor space (See Figure 9).
Additional Metrics
Additional metrics for design purposes have been derived from the illustrated graphs and resultant formulae.
The derived formula could be documented as follows:
P=K/L+M-(6.4 x R/S) (8)
Where
P = Cooling per perimeter meter (kW/m)
K = CRAC net sensible capacity (kW)
L = CRAC length (m)
M = CRAC manufacturer side maintenance clearance (m)
R = CRAC redundancy
S = One- or two-sided CRAC layout
Conclusion
Approximately 50% (270 kW/180 kW) more capacity, 30% more cabinets, and 16% higher-cabinet load density could be utilized in the same space with only one redundant CRAC and may still fulfill Tier II-IV component redundancy requirements. This is achievable at no additional investment cost as the same number of CRACs (4) is installed within the same available footprint of 2,000 ft2. The analysis also showed that the highest average practical load per cabinet should not exceed 6 kW if efficient space utilization is sought by maintaining a C2C of 0.46.
This study shows that an average high-density cabinet load may not be cooled efficiently with the use of only CRACs or even with CRACs coupled with passive heat-extraction solutions. The data supports the necessary implementation of row- and cabinet-based active cooling for high-density data center applications.
The first supercomputers used cooling water; however, the low-density data centers that were commissioned closer to a decade ago (below 2 kW per cabinet) almost totally eliminated liquid cooling. This was due to reservations about the risks of water leakage within live, critical data centers.
Data centers of today are considered to be medium-density facilities. Some of these data centers average below 4 kW per cabinet. Owners and operators that have higher demands and are ahead of the average market typically dedicate only a portion of the data center space to high-density cabinets.
With server density increasing every day and high-density cabinets (approaching 40 kW and above) becoming a potential future deployment, data centers seem likely to experience soaring heat loads that will demand comprehensive liquid-cooling infrastructures.
With future high-density requirements, CRAC units may become secondary cooling support or even more drastically, CRAC units may become obsolete!
Appendix A
Appendix A1. One-sided CRAC, maximum-throw, maximum-packed cabinets
Appendix A2. One-sided CRAC, average-throw, medium cabinets
Appendix A3. One-sided CRAC, minimum-throw, high-density cabinets
Appendix A4. Two-sided CRAC, maximum-throw, maximum-packed cabinets.
Appendix A5. Two-sided CRAC, average-throw, medium packed cabinets
Appendix A6. Two-sided CRAC, minimum-throw, high density cabinets
Appendix B
Appendix B1. Tier I (N) CRAC modeling results
Note 1: HD = High Density
Note 2: MP = Max Packed
Note 3: * = CRAC Area includes maintenance and throw buffer
Note 4:^ = 27 m2 area is deducted from total area, as it is already included in the throw buffer
Appendix B2. Tier II-IV (N+1) CRAC modeling results
Note 1: HD = High Density
Note 2: MP = Max Packed
Note 3: * = CRAC Area includes maintenance and throw buffer
Note 4: ^ = 27 m2 area is deducted from total area, as it is already included in the throw buffer
Appendix B3. Tier II-IV (N+1) CRAC modeling results
Appendix C
Liebert CRAC Technical Specification
Note: Net sensible cooling will be reduced by 7.5 kW x 3 = 22.5 kW for fans; 68.7 kW for Model DH/VH380A
Cogeneration powers South Africa’s first Tier III Certified data center
/in Design/by Kevin HeslinMTN’s new facility makes use of Kyoto Wheel
By Olu Soluade, Robin Sloan, Willem Weber, and Philip Young
Figure 1. MTN Centurion Site
MTN’s new data center in Centurion, Johannesburg, South Africa, includes a 500-square-meter (m2) space to support MTN’s existing Pretoria Switch. MTN provides cellular telecommunications services, hosted data space, and operations offices via a network of regional switches. The Centurion Switch data center is a specialist regional center serving a portion of the smallest but most densely populated province of South Africa, Gauteng. The operational Centurion Switch Data Center provides energy efficient and innovative service to the MTN regional network (See Figure 1).
As part of the project, MTN earned Uptime Institute Tier III Design and Facility Certifications and the Carbon Credit application and approval by the Department of Energy-South Africa. Among other measures, MTN even deployed Novec 1230 fire-suppression gas to gain carbon credits from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). MTN Centurion is the first Uptime Institute Tier III Certified Design and Facility in South Africa. In addition, the facility became the first in South Africa to make use of the Kyoto Wheel to help it achieve its low PUE and energy-efficiency operations goals.
A modular design accommodates the 500-m2 white space and provides auxiliary services and functions to ensure a data center that meets MTN’s standards and specifications.
Space was also allocated for the future installation of:
Electrical Services
The building is divided into 250 m2 of transmission space and 250 m2 of data space. Both spaces were designed to the following specifications.
Figure 2. External chiller plant
Heating, Ventilation, Air-conditioning
A specific client requirement was to build a facility that is completely off grid. As a result the design team conducted extensive research and investigated various types of refrigeration plants to determine which system would be the most efficient and cost effective.
The final technologies for the main areas include (see Figures 2-5):
The design for the data center facility began as a Tier IV facility, but the requirement for autonomous control caused management to target Tier III instead. However, the final plans incorporate many features that might be found in a Fault Tolerant facility.
Tables 1 and 2 describe the facility’s electrical load in great detail.
Green Technologies
Figure 3. Stainless steel cladded chilled water pipework.
The horizontal mounting of the coil of the Kyoto Wheel (See Figure 5 a-b) at MTN Centurion is a one of a kind. The company paid strict attention to installation details and dedicated great effort to the seamless architectural integration of the technology.
MTN chose the Kyoto Wheel (enthalpy wheel) to transfer energy between hot indoor returning air from the data center and outdoor air because the indirect heat exchange between hot return air and cooler outdoor air offers:
Figure 4. Ducted return air from cabinets in data space
Although the use of an enthalpy wheel in South Africa is rare (MTN Centurion is one of two installations known to the author), Southern African temperature conditions are very well suited to the use of air-side economizers. Nonetheless the technology has not been widely accepted in South Africa because of:
The tri-generation plant is one of the other green measures for the Centurion Switch. The tri-generation meets the base load of the switch.
Figure 5a. Kyoto Wheel installation
Figure 5b. Kyoto Wheel installation
MTN first employed a tri-generation plant at its head office of about four years ago (see Figures 6-8).
The data center also incorporates low-power, high-efficiency lighting, which is controlled by occupancy sensors and photosensors (see Figure 9).
Design Challenges
Table 1. Phase 1 Building 950 W/data cabinet and 1,950 W/switch rack at 12 cabinets/row 600-kW maximum per floor
MTN Centurion Switch experienced several challenges during design and construction and ultimately applied solutions that can be used on future projects:
Table 2. Phase 1 Building SF – 2,050 W/data cabinet at 12 cabinets/row, 800 kW maximum per floor
The design team also identified three steps to encourage further use of airside economizers in South Africa:
Innovation
Many features incorporated in the MTN facility are tried-and-true data center solutions. However, in addition to the enthalpy wheel, MTN employed modularity and distributed PDU technology for the first time in this project.
In addition, the Kyoto Wheel is used throughout HVAC design, but rarely at this scale and in this configuration. The use of this system, in this application, and the addition of the chilled water coils and water spray were the first within the MTN network and the first in South Africa.
Conclusion
MTN tirelessly pursues energy efficiency and innovation in all its data center designs. The MTN Centurion site is the first Tier III Certified Constructed Facility in South Africa and the first for MTN.
The future provision for tri-generation, photovoltaic, and wind installations are all items that promise to increase the sustainability of this facility.
Figure 6. Tri-generation plant room at MTN Head Office
Figure 7. Tri-generation gas engines at MTN Head Office
Figure 8. Tri-generation schematics at MTN Head Office
Figure 10. Data rack installation
Figure 11. Power control panels
Figure 12. External chilled water plant equipment
Olu Soluade started AOS Consulting Engineers in 2008. He holds a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering and a BSc. Hons. degree with Second Class upper in Mechanical Engineering. He is a professional engineer and professional construction project manager with 21 years of experience in the profession.
Philip Young is Building Services Manager at AOS Consulting Engineers and a professional electronic and mechanical engineer registered with ECSA (P Eng) with 10 years experience. Previously he was a project manager & engineer at WSP Group Africa (Pty) Ltd. Mr. Young is involved in design, feasibility studies, multidisciplinary technical and financial evaluations, Building Management Systems, and renewable energy.