Leading Edge Design Group

In 2011 we completed several renovation projects in live data centers, meaning that the construction was going on within active data center space and while IT equipment remained operational.  These active renovations always prove to be equally challenging and rewarding.  An unfortunate requirement associated with many active renovations is the need for a data center shutdown at some point during the construction process.  A shutdown may be required for a variety of reasons and can impact some or all systems in the data center.  Simple examples are:

• In an expansion or reconfiguration, an IT equipment shutdown may occur in order to relocate racks and IT equipment into new expansion areas, or into different row or density configurations. An example is a new high density “zone” with updated power, cooling, and telecommunications infrastructure could be created to support virtualized loads.  Once the “zone” is commissioned, IT equipment needs to be relocated, which may require a shutdown.
• A chiller plant shutdown may occur to increase capacity, whether in total tons, pipe sizing, etc
• An electrical shutdown may be necessary to make final connections to the main building switchgear.

Given the implications of a shutdown, most customers choose to schedule these events during the least impactful times possible, and for many organizations this happens to be the week between Christmas and New Years.  For those in the data center industry, “holiday” season is many times synonymous with “shutdown” season. 

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Over the past year we have seen over a 30% increase in the number of customers expressing interest in obtaining a LEED Certification for their new data center build out or renovation.  This change is illustrative of the continued integration of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability into data center design requirements, but moreover presents a new challenge for owners undertaking the site selection process.

While traditional priorities in a site selection process – power redundancy, natural disaster protection, cheap energy costs, etc – will never change, the impact of sustainability has been steadily increasing.  For example, organizations like The Green Grid publish ‘free cooling’ maps, helping owners understand which geographic regions will allow them to maximize economizer usage throughout the year.  In addition, organizations that have set LEED certification goals must take into consideration how proposed sites will impact their overall LEED scorecard. 

Under the LEED 2009 Commercial Interiors rating system, a project must successfully obtain a minimum of 50 points (out of a total 110 total available points) to achieve a LEED Silver designation.  While a target of less than 50% of the total available points may seem marginal, anyone who has completed the LEED process knows and understands how challenging it can be to earn 50 points, how every point becomes critical, and why site selection is an integral part of achieving LEED certifications. 

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In makes economic sense to use timers or occupancy / vacancy sensors in public restrooms. There is no need for the lights to be on in an unoccupied space. However there are problems when these technologies are combined with energy efficient fluorescent lights.

Fluorescent lights can take up to two minutes to reach full brightness. In many cases by the time the light has properly illuminated the space it is no longer occupied. This could create a safety concern in a public restroom. Also the constant on off cycling of the light reduces the life of the light creating a maintenance issue. Many fluorescent lighting manufactures recommend a minimum on time of thirty minutes in order to maintain lamp life.

The solution in these applications is LED. Light emitting diodes reach full brightness instantly and the on off cycling of a motion sensor increases their useable life. The combination of a properly placed intelligent sensor and a LED light fixture in a public restroom will maximize both efficiency and safety while eliminating any maintenance issues for many years (Usually the entire career of the maintenance staff).

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Have you heard about this yet?  The ZigBee wireless protocol?  If you haven’t, no worries, some company will announce how they’ve harnessed the latest and greatest use of ZigBee to make their product save YOU money in the near future.   

So what is it?  To be short, it’s a protocol that creates its own mesh network.  There is a gateway and then a series of downstream nodes.  The power of the “mesh” is that the downstream nodes don’t have to directly link to the gateway to pass its information along.  The nodes work together as team and pass information from node to node that eventually makes it back to the gateway for the data to be processed.  Think of it as a linear approach to networking.  Nodes can stretch far away from the gateway without ever losing touch.  As long as a node can find another node to talk to, all the nodes can communicate with the gateway.

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If you attended the Uptime Institute Symposium in Santa Clara, CA last week, you may have left wondering what the term ‘modular data center’ really means.  The idea of modularity was hailed during countless presentations as a requirement for any organization looking to build a new data center and the best way to ensure energy efficiency.  Unfortunately, none of these presentations defined what exactly a ‘modular data center’ is and instead used the term to describe a number of different applications.  I heard a ‘modular data center’ described as:

• A data center “POD” - prefabricated and shipped to your site ready to deploy
• A methodology whereby you create “building blocks,” or pre-defined increments of growth.  For example, if you have 5,000 square feet of data center space with 500kW of IT load capacity, you could build 5 (five) individual 1,000 square foot, 100kW modules at a time.
• A container holding infrastructure components like chillers, switchgear, and UPS systems that you “plug in.” 
• A framework for a cloud-ready data center that integrates processes and personnel to rapidly scale to meet growing XaaS demands.

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I am so tired of these so-called ESCO’s and holier-than-thou companies that claim to be the next best thing since the sheet rock screw to businesses who want to do the right thing by reducing their energy consumption and associated carbon footprint. I’m not trying to say that they are all evil, hit & run artists - but I can’t help but think that they are more the norm than the exception. We propose and do a lot  of lighting retrofits for commercial and industrial concerns and our approach is to  the provide the customers with a solution that not only meets or exceeds their goals for energy reduction but also leaves them with a much better system than they had when we arrived. This means that if they had a terrible lighting system when we surveyed the facility, they would have a considerably better lighting system when we completed our proposed solution. I have seen way too many projects where the customer was looking to do the right thing only to be victimized by the ‘low hanging fruit bandits’.

Why would anyone with half a conscience go into a facility  on the premise of an energy consultant/specialist, see that the place has a horrible lighting system and simply propose the down and dirty, take the money and run, low hanging fruit approach to retrofitting their lighting systems? I guess the answer is pretty obvious……….. that it is the easy money and more often than not the customer is simply looking for the biggest bang for their buck – or  best ROI so that certain individuals can pound themselves on  their chests and brag about the 2 year ROI they just manage to negotiate while  the ESCO is laughing all the way to the bank.

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In the current cash-strapped economic environment, most organizations burdened with old data center infrastructures understand the inefficiencies in their daily operations but lack the capital to pursue efficiency upgrades.  When done correctly, an efficiency upgrade to your data center not only reduces operating costs, but moreover can increase reliability, capacity to support high density, manageability and more. 

After attending the “Mass Save” 2011 Open House, I believe the utility companies in Massachusetts resoundingly answered your proverbial cries through the rollout of a new financing program for energy efficiency upgrades.  And not just any financing program of course… zero percent financing.

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The buzz today is about renewable energy, producing power from the sun, the wind and the earth. All of these methods show a great deal of promise to help us reduce our carbon footprint .However  while we wait for more economical ways to produce power from renewable energy sources there are plenty of cost effective choices that could help us right now.

It is much easier and more cost effective to save a kW than it is to produce a kW.

As an example a recent press release from a solar power panel manufacturing company was celebrating the fact that they were successful in reducing the cost of manufacturing panels to only one dollar per watt!

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“Throw my switches out the window, throw my relays out there too, throw my time clocks out the door I don’t need any more cause tonight I’ll be staying with my wireless control system.  I should have made this move much sooner, but it was more than I dared to do,   Oh the features are so strong, and I’ve waited way too long to make the move to wireless controls.”                                                                                        

Thought I was quoting a Bob Dylan song didn’t you? Well if Dylan were to write ‘Tonight I’ll be Staying Here With You’ during these times he might just throw in a verse or two like this. 

With the emergence of wireless lighting control systems the need for switches, contactors, time clocks etc is a thing of the past. No more banging on an entire factory of lights and leaving them on 24/7 simply because the prevailing controls are so antiquated that it just doesn’t allow for any flexibility or – more importantly- granularity of controls based on occupancy levels, scheduled events, available daylight, personal preferences etc, etc.

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Building a data center is a unique construction process.  The systems are complex, the value of the equipment being protected is significant, and as density increases, we are required to fit more infrastructures into limited spaces.  Moreover, there are a diverse set of stakeholders involved; customer representatives from IT, facilities, security, safety, finance (and more) are engaged with a general contractor, numerous subcontractors, architects, engineers, consultants, and testing agencies.

It may sound trivial to establish a clear line of communication between the owner and the contractor.  However, as it relates to the construction of the data center, we find that both establishing and following this line of communication is both a critical and often disregarded process.  When overlooked, it leads to confusion and increased costs; it also potentially jeopardizes the relationships between all stakeholders involved.

A majority of construction projects, especially those that involve the bid process, utilize the AIA A201 contract as part of the specifications package, which defines the “General Conditions of the Contract for Construction.”  The A201 contract includes a specific protocol by which the owner will “designate in writing a representative who shall have express authority to bind the Owner with respect to all matters requiring the Owner’s approval or authorization.”  Whether this designated representative is an employee or a hired consultant, as the owner’s representative he or she is the person responsible for dictating all owner decisions. 

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