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FACILITIES topic
Prefabricated data centres are prêt-à-porter
According to a recent report by DatacenterDynamics Intelligence, modular data centres are growing in popularity. Schneider Electric’s recent announcement of an extensive range of prefabricated modules coupled with a library of reference data centre designs is aimed to meet this growing demand for rapid and predictable data centres. By Matthew Baynes, Enterprise Sales Director, Schneider Electric.
“THE MARKET IS UNDERGOING extensive and disruptive changes at the moment,” says Matthew Baynes, enterprise sales director at Schneider Electric. “As an industry, we have long recognised the near exponential growth of created, stored and transmitted data. However, trends including cloud computing, social networks and social business, Big Data and the Internet of Things have added momentum to this situation. The velocity and volume of change is driving a need for us to find new ways to design and deliver data centres. This is the context for Schneider Electric’s recent introduction of its Prefabricated Modular Data Centre offering.”
To date, one thing which has held back the adoption of modular solutions is certain degree of confusion in the market which has been caused by the terminology in circulation. “One issue is that the terms ‘container’ and ‘modular’ are being used interchangeably,” continues Baynes. “We’d say that containers are certainly one form of modular solution - all containers are modular, but not all modular solutions are containers. It’s a mistake to only think of ISO containers when you think of modular approaches.”
In fact, Schneider Electric do provide some of their solutions in the traditional form factor of an ISO container, however, these solutions only share their footprint in common. However, the company believes that the definition of what constitutes modular is less about size and more about concept. “At its most basic, you could even say that a brick is the smallest modular element of a data centre build.
The modular concept also includes skid- based, pod-based, mobile, portable and all-in-one solutions, to name a few. The important distinction is prefabrication and
pre-assembly. The equipment should arrive at the site ready for integration with a minimum requirement for on-site engineering services,” Matthew Baynes continues.
Factors limiting adoption Another feature which has affected rate of adoption is the number and type of solutions on offer. “Very often, modular solutions have been touted by smaller companies which have some great IP, but lack a breadth of offering. The problem is that often, in order to utilise these solutions, the data centre designer was limited by choice and forced to make certain compromises - the use of modular components could have knock-on effects elsewhere in the physical layer. Even larger organisations offering modular solutions, did so on a very limited basis.
Schneider Electric reference design #36 for a fully prefabricated, 2MW Tier III data centre
To a certain degree, there is an increasing trend towards modular pieces of equipment being utilised in hybrid data centre designs. Because many professionals remain circumspect about putting IT equipment into ‘containers’, these approaches bring together traditional approaches to the white space with modular approaches to external plant and electrical infrastructure. With the introduction of nine
Winter 2013 I
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