FEATURE FEATURE
Abed Jishi , VP , Design , EMEA & APAC , Vantage Data Centers or customer requirements , we explore solutions that minimise any negative impact – sometimes even partnering with utilities to use recycled or reclaimed water .
In our experience , having utilised various cooling technologies over the years – including air-cooled chillers , water-cooled chillers , indirect heat exchange and liquid to the rack – leveraging an adaptive cooling architecture gives customers more choice . It allows customers the flexibility to deploy up to 20 kW racks with traditional air-cooled technology and more than 50 kW racks using liquid to rack cooling solutions . An integrated economiser capability reduces compressor energy based on the ambient temperature outside , so when the weather is favourable , cooling becomes ‘ free ’ and less resource-intensive .
The air-cooled chillers plant has an N + 2 component redundancy and is part of a closed-loop configuration which requires a near zero water recharge , enhancing our goal of sustainable data centre operations . We ’ re also working towards pushing the medium for heat exchange closer and closer to the source – i . e ., the chip – with a goal of an even more efficient and just as reliable cooling approach .
Highly efficient airflow of positive pressure hot aisle containment is achieved in part by maintaining the computer room air handling ( CRAH ) units outside each data module , on opposite sides . Again , this means more room for racks while allowing CRAH maintenance to be performed away from critical IT infrastructure .
Connectivity A further important consideration is levels of connectedness as , along with space and power , this directly influences how far a customer can expand in the future at the same site ; the best data centres are hyperconnected with a plethora of carrier and gateway options . The worst are isolated sheds with little connectivity .
Campus sites should therefore be chosen specifically to provide access to diverse carriers . To facilitate this , our campus design employs a modified ring topology for inter-building connectivity . First , carriers bring their fibre to the edge of the campus , entering through dedicated underground point-of-entry pathways separated by a minimum of 500 feet for safety . For added redundancy , carriers bring in a minimum of two laterals off diverse paths . From there , connections continue to entry points located within the data centres ’ Meet-Me-Rooms ( MMR ) in which customers can opt to install their own network equipment for cross-connecting to any carrier . www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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