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More evidence that modular, containerized systems are catching on came from a panel discussion at the Uptime Institute Symposium 2012 event in Santa Clara, Calif. titled “The Mega Data Center – Retrofit or Greenfield?”
Matthew Tavares, global solution manager for Schneider Electric’s Facility Module offer, sat in on the session and said panelists pointed out that containerized data center infrastructure enabled them to better utilize scarce capital.
“Companies want to deploy pods in a just-in-time fashion so they don’t tie up their capex,” Tavares says. “They can do it in 30MW chunks vs. 100MW on day one. So they can better utilize that capex money and build out the data center as they bring on more tenants.”
Panelists noted that over the 15-year lifespan of a data center, based on Moore’s Law data centers can expect to experience seven technology refresh cycles. During that time, power consumption will continually increase because the number of transistors per device will continually increase, and hence the power consumption per rack will go up. As a result, power consumption over the life of the data center may increase seven times from the first year level.
“Companies need to plan for and be able to address that growth,” Tavares says. “This is where a lot of data centers fall short.”
Modular, containerized power and cooling systems can help companies deal with both the growth and the capex issues by enabling them to gradually add capacity as demand warrants, a topic we’ve covered previously – and apparently will continue to cover, since it’s proving to be a hot one.
