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What to Consider When Building a Data Center

October 11, 2018 by AFIadmin

You’ve decided it’s time to make some changes with your data center, but you have some concerns. Perhaps you’re worried about security, growth, or you just want something more reliable when it comes to your data, but now you’re faced with multiple options and a major decision.

In the planning phase for a project of this magnitude, there are many things to consider including concerns for capacity, reliability, control, privacy, and more. Is it better to build a data center for yourself, or share one and go down the colocation path? On top of these complex issues, the day-to-day demands of running an IT-focused business keep marching on. The more time you spend in the planning phase, looking at sites, comparing costs, and predicting how the business will scale for growth, is less time you are spending on addressing the needs of your actual customers.What to consider for data center design

Co-location

Although colocation (“colo”) may seem like an attractive option, you need to think about costs and control. A colocation strategy might be saving money in terms of energy and setup costs, but in the end you will be paying for it when it comes to provider service charges. In fact, you may be paying more in the way of service charges to the point that it would be more expensive than paying for your own data center. Control is another major factor to keep in mind. Going the colocation route will ultimately leave you with less control over your data. Since you are not the owner of the data center, you are subject to regulations that could restrict access during certain days and times, inevitably slowing down the speed at which you can make changes and business decisions with your data.

Building your own

Another option you may be considering is building your own data center. It’s a seemingly empowering and strategic move, but you will need to educate yourself in many different areas to pull this off. For instance, finding the right site location for the data center may seem easy enough, but unless you are well-versed in real estate and property purchasing, there will be many headaches in your future. Keeping costs down, capacity concerns, construction costs, taxes, and equipment are just a few buckets of importance in building your own data center that result in less time spent on your business and customer needs.

A third option? – Custom-Built Data Centers

Custom-built data centers from a team of experts may be your best option for several reasons. By customizing your data center from the ground up, you have an investor-friendly option that allows you to choose the design, location, and size that meet your specific requirements. By leveraging a team who specializes in these types of builds, you’ll ultimately have more control and security over your data, save money where it counts, and have the flexibility and scalability for growth moving forward.

Consider all options before diving into a new solution for your data center. What seems like the best or most attractive option for some organizations, may not always be the best fit for yours.

Questions? or want to engage our data center designers?

Filed Under: Data Center Build, Featured Tagged With: Build your own data center, Co-location, Custom-built data centers, What to Consider When Building a Data Center?

Ideas for Improving your Data Center’s Efficiency

October 5, 2018 by AFIadmin

Now more than ever, IT-focused organizations need to modernize their outdated and inefficient data-centers. Quite often there are small, and simple steps that can be taken to ensure that you are getting the most out of your data-center and that it’s as reliable as possible. Below are a few steps that you can take to modernize and improve the efficiency of your data-center.

Learn from the power you are using. Quite often, old and outdated data centers do a terrible job at monitoring and reporting on power usage. Upgrade your reporting software and metering devices so that your data center managers can learn from the data. Collecting and archiving company-wide power-usage data allows the data center management team to perform analysis or failures, fine-tune energy management methods, and address potential maintenance issues.

Give your secondary emergency power protection a promotion! Considering vast improvements in recent years in generator technology, data centers very frequently still rely on an effective secondary emergency power source. Quite often, your secondary emergency power source is an important last line of defense when problems arise. By enhancing this secondary power source, through implementing automatic transfer switches, versatile assemblies, and advanced controllers and meters, you can seamlessly transfer essential loads from one power source to another.

Boost your power and energy. Modern electrical distribution strategies can increase not only your power density, but also energy efficiency and flexibility at the same time working to minimize overall maintenance. Stepping up your PDUs (power distribution units) can lead to a minor but significant (up to 3%) increase in efficiency in the majority of data centers. Using this strategy will also reduce your needs for cabling, while enabling you to effectively manage power usage all the way down to the outlet.

Step up your switching equipment maintenance. Many classic data centers have their switching equipment designed to provide 20 years of service, assuming there are properly maintained.  You can improve the overall safety and performance by servicing the switches on a regular basis, updating relay schemes and circuit breakers every 10 to 12 years.

Watch out for higher-than-normal temperatures. Be sure to take advantage of automated controls and sensors when it comes to catching above average temperatures in your data center. These automated controls and sensors will enable economizer cooling and airflow management solutions to get to work, ensuring improved comfort and performance levels.

Upgrade UPS Productivity.  A relatively low-risk and low-cost way to improve your data center is to upgrade your UPS with a newer model. Advanced UPS systems running in high-efficiency mode can deliver an efficiency of 99%! This is a great method for boosting reliability, overall annual savings, and cutting energy waste for your organization.

Consider new cooling techniques. Your IT equipment footprint maybe decreasing but its power requirements are most likely increasing. Review your current equipment rack capabilities and consider upgrading to take advantage improved cooling, cable management and modular design. Effective cooling techniques use the best rack containment schemes for active cooling instead of controlled ventilation.

LEDs…. For long term savings. Although it is a smaller chunk of your overall data center power usage, when you invest in LEDs for lighting, you can expect some major cost and energy savings over the long term. Look for an integrated, multi-sensor technology approach for your lighting solution to help automate gains using daylight and occupancy sensors.

Questions for our team? Contact Us Today!

Filed Under: Data Center Management, Featured Tagged With: Boost power and energy, Consider new cooling techniques, Ideas for Improving your Data Center’s Efficiency, Upgrade UPS Productiviy, Watch temperatures

Global Auto Supplier Builds New Data Center

March 24, 2015 by AFIadmin 185 Comments

Auto Supplier Builds World Class Data Center with Assistance from SIS and AFI

A global auto-supplier headquartered in Europe, boasts a proud history of two and a half centuries in the automotive and aerospace sectors. With around 50,000 employees and locations in over 30 countries this organization is quite versatile with four main divisions: Aerospace, Auto Components, Metallurgy, and Defense Systems.  A requirement for a new North American headquarters and technology center in Michigan called for a world class data center to support engineering and manufacturing operations for multiple North American divisions.New-Building-

To help bring this vision to life, Jim Schoenle, an account executive with SIS, worked closely with IT site manager, Jason, to lay out a plan to meet these requirements for this massive undertaking. This was not your typical data center build in that it would be supporting all of their North American locations, a secure 24/7 operation with zero tolerance for downtime was critical. To help meet these requirements, Jim brought SIS design-build partner, Advanced Facilities, Inc., on board to assist with design and engineering efforts.

This new headquarters was to be designed from scratch making it a rare moment in the life of an IT executive since this data center was a vision, and not an existing room in a building that would need to be transformed. With this in mind, the client realized they needed a partner they could trust to pull this off. Purchases of big ticket items like a UPS or CRAC were one thing, but to have everything integrated into a robust and fully functional data center was quite another.

Years of Data Center Experience

At-a-Glance Industry: Manufacturing

Challenge: The client needed assistance with building a new world-class data center to support North American Operations.

Results: Delivered project within a very tight timeline and on budget

With Advanced Facilities in place providing the data center design-build expertise, SIS was able to articulate the necessity of a scope-of-work for the new data center that would be separate from the A&E and Contracting firms.  This was important because the space and design requirements that are needed to handle a data center of this capacity, especially one responsible for the North American operations, was something that SIS and Advanced Facilities’ many years of experience in building out unique data centers called for.GKN DC

Before breaking ground on construction, the SIS and the Advanced Facilities team coordinated with the client’s IT team to design and develop the new data center, including the space requirements needed. The design laid out was a result of dozens of cases where a focus on best-practices, low operating costs, and high availability were perfected. Once, those space requirements were established, it was untouched by the general contractor.

“Tim and his team were great” said Jason in regards to Tim Amann, President of Advanced Facilities. “Not only did he guide us through the process of helping us understand our true availability requirements, his team then designed the facility to those needs.  He was able to act as an intermediary with the architect and general contractor to ensure the combined project went smoothly.”

As expected, the construction phase of the project brought its’ own challenges in the sense that if this had been an existing building, the construction of the data center would have been a standard two to three month project. Since the manufacturing cannot happen without IT systems in place, SIS and Advanced Facilities would need to execute the project in less than half the normal time allotted. Although under unprecedented pressure, the project was completed on time and would be facing the first true test sooner than expected. Several months after construction was completed, the region was hit by a very powerful wind storm causing several power outages in the area, including the new headquarters.

New Data Center Passes Real World Test

Jason described what took place to Tim Amann of Advanced Facilities. “We had a building catastrophe around 1:30pm.  The building lost power for about 5 minutes. The entire building was dark and the data center failed over to UPS, activated the generator, switched to generator in about 3-5 seconds, air conditioning fired back up.  The room was back to a proper cooling state in about 5-7 minutes.  We ran on the generator for the minimum 30 minutes.  The system automatically detected stable utility power and switched back once the minimum 30 minutes lapsed.  All hands-off, I just watched it go through the motions.”

Jason ended with, “It was great to watch. Everything went exactly as designed. It was a wonderful thing!”

Since the project’s completion, SIS continues to work closely with the client to provide technology and data center enhancements to help meet their long term goals.  These include updates around VMware, virtualization, data replication strategies, as well as guidance on secondary data center failover solutions. This on-going support will be critical to the client’s long term goals as backup and data protection requirements will continue to be a focus for 2015 and beyond.

Filed Under: Data Center Build, Featured Tagged With: Auto Supplier builds world class data center, New data center passes real world test, Years of Data center experience

AFI News

Do you have a modern data center?

Do you have a modern data center?

December 11, 2018 By AFIadmin

AFI's Data Center Assessment Process Now more than ever, IT-focused organizations need to … [Read More...]

How to select the Right PDU for your Data Center

How to select the Right PDU for your Data Center

November 16, 2018 By AFIadmin

This article will help your organization in PDU Selection - During the build-out your company’s data … [Read More...]

What to Consider When Building a Data Center

What to Consider When Building a Data Center

October 11, 2018 By AFIadmin

You’ve decided it’s time to make some changes with your data center, but you have some concerns. Perhaps you’re worried about security, growth, or you just want something more reliable when it comes to your data, but now you’re faced with multiple options and a major decision. In the planning phase for a project of […]

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Proper maintenance will extend the life and dramatically improve the availability of your data center. AFI's team will structure the right maintenance program for your data center..

Mission Statement

Ensure our client’s projects succeed. No exceptions. We’re not perfect, but we want every client’s project experience to be.

What we do

Our associates provide design, engineering, project management and on-site services including the expertise to design, specify, manage and build critical environmental data centers

About AFI

Advanced Facilities, Inc. (AFI) specializes in the design building and servicing of data center and other business-critical infrastructure.  From … Read More

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