Data Center Design

Christopher Geyer

A Data Center
Highly secure, fault-resistant facilities housing equipment that connect to telecommunications networks. The facilities accommodate servers, switches, routers, modem racks. Data centers support corporate data bases, web sites and provide locations for CLECs, ISPs, ASPs, Web hosting companies, DSL providers and other IT services.

Rack Location Units

A standard for measuring equipment space in a data center is RLUs or Rack Location Units

1U

2U

3U

4U

Elements of a Data Center

The Site Command Center Cable Management Network Infrastructure Terminal Servers Environmental Controls Power

Criteria
The Budget $ - What is the available budget? - Can the scope of the project be achieved with the current budget? - What are the actual funds needed to create the data center? - How will funds be distributed & can they be redistributed?

Criteria Continued
Physical Constraints: -Available Space & Weight of Equipment -Power Requirements -Cooling -Bandwidth

Criteria Continued
System Availability Profiles -Categorization -Device Redundancies -Power Redundancies -Cooling Redundancies -Network Redundancies

Structural Aspects
When dealing with a raised floor ceiling height matters. Basement data center locations near water are not a good idea. Their must be a pathway for equipment to be moved in & out of the data center. Make sure the floor where the data center is to be located is rated for the estimated load.

Power
Adequate power Surge suppression Proper grounding of equipment Cable Layout

Power Redundancy
Forms of Power Redundancy 1. Battery-feed UPS 2. Power Generators

Networking
Each cabinet needs be to supplied with appropriate connection media: Cat6 copper, multi-mode fiber, and/or singlemode fiber Proper cable management should be implemented Over Flow

Security
Physical Access Levels of Access Monitoring

Past to Future

Technology changes continuously making versatility a primary focus in a Data Center. At one point in time a single computer occupied the space of an entire Data Center. That same space can be occupied by thousands of servers today.

Expandability
Create more RLUs than current needs dictate Power Distributions Unit (PDU) HVAC Physical Space

Example RLU Definitions

Power:
3.42 BTUs per Hr = 1 watt

Bandwidth: 1

-inbound and outbound bandwidth specifications -Media type requirement

Weight:
-Weight of the equipment

Physical Space:
-Width and depth of rack chassis -Cooling Dimensions

Functional Capacity:
-Needed to determine quantity of servers for a particular RLU definition

Example RLU Definitions

Specifications Weight Power RLU-A (storage server)
780 lbs Two 3 Amp 208V L6-30R outlets 3812 Watts x RM

RLU-B (storage server)

970 lbs Two 30 Amp 208V L6-30R outlets 4111 Watts x RM

RLU-C (processing server)

1000 lbs Four 30 Amp 208V L6-30R outlets 8488 Watts x RM

Cooling Physical Space Bandwidth

13040 BTUs per hr 24 x 48 in 8 multi-mode fiber

14060 BTUs per hr 24 x 48 in 12 multi-mode fiber

29030 BTUs per hr 24 x 53 in 4 Cat6 copper 12 multi-mode fiber

Functional Capacity

5.2 TB

4.7 TB

24 CPU 96GB RAM

Disaster Preparation
Natural Disasters -Flooding -Seismic Activity -Temperature Extremes -Fire Human Disasters -Industrial Pollution -Electromagnetic Interference

Overview
1. What equipment will the data center contain? 2. What will be the RLU definitions? 3. What are the required utility feeds? 4. How many RLUs will be needed? 5. What are the limiting factors?

Bibliography
Snevely, Rob. Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology. Palo Alto, California: Sun Microsystems Press, A Prentice Hall Title, 2002 Hornby, David and Pepple, Ken. Consolidation in the Data Center. Santa Clara, California: Sun Microsystems Press, A Prentice Hall Title, 2003 Willian, Toigo. Disaster Recovery Planning. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall PTR, 2003 Portolani, Maurizio. Data Center Fundamentals. Indianapolis, Indiana: Cisco Press, 2004

Equinix Data Center