FOCUS MODULAR VS CUSTOM DESIGN
Issue 12, Oct/Nov
WHAT WILL MODULARITY COST YOU? Calculating TCO of a modular data center. By Yevgeniy Sverdlik
order to compare different options and find one that fits the best. Several large data center design and construction service providers – including large IT vendors that also have professional services divisions – have been touting modularity as a new and efficient way to build data centers.
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The concept sparks interest but there have been very few publicized deployments of modular data centers, including both containerized solutions and designs where parts of larger structures are pre-manufactured and delivered for assembly at the construction site.
Part of the reason the industry has been slow to adopt the modular approach is that information has not been forthcoming regarding modular options, according to Mark Bramfitt, an independent consultant. Bramfitt has recently been commissioned by the US Department of Energy to write a guide for federal agencies for buying modular data centers, focusing mostly on containerized solutions.
“The DoE is interested in making sure that federal agencies are aware of energy efficiency and deployment issues associated with containerized data centers,” Bramfitt says.
In the process of doing research for the paper, Bramfitt talked to several manufacturers. He said “they (vendors) don’t seem to want to answer many fundamental questions about containers”. He said he has asked about total load versus IT load (for PUE calculations) and for amounts of chilled water needed to be supplied to cool containers.
“We had blindly thought that we could pull spec sheets on this equipment … but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” Bramfitt says. “We’re hoping that at least some vendors will step forward and offer up the information that we’re asking for.”
Peter Sacco, president of the US data center 50
www.datacenterdynamics.com
redicting total cost of ownership of a data center is a difficult, complicated task which has to be performed before one is built in
design, construction and consulting firm PTS Data Center Solutions, said he has also approached a vendor about a non-containerized modular design on behalf of customers. Multiple times, he found it difficult to get the information required. Customers approach PTS to find out the potential price difference between deploying a modular data center and the traditional approach. “Right now I can’t give them a straight answer,” he says.
NOT AS SIMPLE AS IT SOUNDS
One erroneous assumption Bramfitt said users make about containerized solutions is that they can “just plunk one of these boxes down”. Very often it is the cost of additional power and chilled-water capacity that is more prohibitive than the cost of the building, in which case the form factor does nothing to solve the problem.
The first basic question, according to Bramfitt, should be: “What is the barrier to deployment of a traditional data center space? Is it really the fact that you need to construct a new building, or is it the power [or chilled-water] capacity you don’t have?”
Not all modular solutions require chilled water, with some using evaporative cooling and some taking the direct-expansion approach. There are also some new containers on the market that use free cooling, which Bramfitt calls “second-generation” containers.
IBM told DCDFOCUS that total power to its containerized product – the Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC)– varied depending on final configuration. “The total power required for the PMDC will depend on the number of IT racks required, the average power density per rack and the infrastructure equipment to support the loads,” IBM said. “The total power for a 20 ft container can vary from about 15kW up to 240kW, the 40 ft container up to about 600kW and the 53 ft container up to about 750kW.”
The amount of chilled water the PMDC requires will depend on the total power load and the type of cooling, as IBM offers multiple cooling approaches for the product, including
chilled water, direct expansion, refrigerant- based cooling and airside economization. Chilled water, however, is still the most popular solution, IBM said.
The difference between total power and the power used by IT equipment in a PMDC will also depend on configuration in any specific case, but IBM says average PUE for PMDC is about 1.3, which includes the entire infrastructure, such as UPS, chiller, cooling units, etc.
HP’S GUIDE TO CALCULATING DATA CENTER TCO
According to a 2005 paper produced by HP Labs describing a model for calculating total cost of ownership for a data center, the model has to capture the cost of space, recurring cost of power, maintenance and amortization of power delivery, conditioning and generation, recurring cost of power required by cooling resources, maintenance and amortization of cooling resources and finally, utilization of critical space.
Calculation of real-estate cost is heavily influenced by occupancy of the space. A modular approach to building out data center space helps lower the TCO in this regard, since the idea is to refrain from building out more space than needed.
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