By Rik WIlliams, Data Centre Operations Manager
How do you make a 3.5MVA N+1 data center Green, yet still cost effective?
That’s the big question that Node4 have been wrestling with over the last few months, but we reckon we’ve come up with the solution. Our brand new data centre (DC3) in Wakefield will be one of the first in the country to combine 2 of the latest energy saving technologies throughout the site: cold aisle containment and free cooling chillers.
By using these methods, we hope to make DC3 one of the most energy efficient data centres in Europe with a PUE of 1.3 to 1.4 (i.e. only about 1/3 of the total power to the site is used on cooling and power conversion).
Click for Cold Aisle Containment Diagram
Cold aisle containment is a new but relatively simple idea to get the best efficiency from air conditioning units. The data hall is set up as a standard hot / cold aisle arrangement but the cold aisles are then sealed off at either end and a transparent ceiling is installed to trap the cold air in front of the racks where it is needed the most. The rest of the room becomes a hot aisle as the air is returned to the air conditioning units, so the room itself will be between 30 and 35 degrees C.
Although that might be a bit warmer than the average techie is used to, the air flowing through the front of all the servers will be about 20 degrees C which is just as it should be.
This kind of arrangement gives a number of advantages over a non-contained room
We estimate that this could save between 40% and 60% on our air conditioning bill, and will be far more environmentally friendly than a normal data centre.
We’ll talk more about how we actually cool the air using our new free cooling chillers and take advantage of the Yorkshire weather in a future blog post.
After in-depth testing and analysis of 3 major vendors Node4 has selected Juniper as the preferred supplier of all its core / edge MPLS equipment.
This shows Node4 commitment to continued investment in technology, allowing us to offer advanced, scalable and resilient solutions to our customers. The new resilient self healing MPLS network will become the heart of our network allowing us to offer flexable Layer 2 and Layer 3 services to our customers from any of our Datacentre at speeds of 10Mb, 100Mb, 1GE or 10GE.
The deal includes the purchase of £370,000 worth of kit including 5x Juniper MX240 with multiple 10GE cards and 5x J-Series 4350 with 20x 1GE. These devices will be deployed across Node4’s Derby and Wakefield Datacenters, Manchester TeleCity and London Telehouse.
juniper MX240
Juniper J-4350
Implementation work will commence in November in preparation for the opening of Node4 new 27,000 SQFT Tier VI datacentre in Wakefield which is due to open Q1 2009.
The network upgrades will also coincide with the installation of a new 10GE Ring between Derby, Wakefield and Manchester.
[click here] to see the progress of Node4 new Wakefield Datacentre
We are proud to announce that in January 2009, Node4 will be opening our 3rd Datacentre just outside Leeds. We have witnessed a rise in demand for data centre space, whether that be for colocation, managed hosting or a hosted telephony, since we opened DC2 in November last year. So to meet this demand we are currently developing a site just off the M62, an easily accessible location for the whole country.
We estimate that the new facility will have the capacity to hold 500 racks with some private suites available on request. DC3 will continue with, and also improve on the high standards Node4 already have in our existing data centres with many features being N+1 and in some cases N+N. There will also be multiple 10Gb links between the new site and Node4 headquarters, giving our existing customers the option to spread their business servers across two sites.
At the moment the steel structure of the building is in place, with architectural plans currently being finalised.
Site Spec
We are please to announce that Hall I is now LIVE and has its first set of paying customers in an operational…
This is an exciting time for Node4, with the success of Hall I in DC2 and now with the extra capacity of 136 racks , we are firmly on course to becoming one of the leading high qaulaity co-location suppliers in the UK..
All the racks have a minimum 4Kw power rating withsome racks having the abbility to take 8Kw, with A+B resiliant feeds.
The Spec of DC2 is below Or download the datasheet
