Data Foundry Blog

Look How Far We’ve Come…

After months of hard work and long hours by our experienced engineers, technicians, construction crews and vendors, we are pleased to let you know that in just a few months, the debut of Texas 1 will take place. On track for a grand opening in June 2011, this new carrier-neutral facility will offer the only state-of-the-art data center of its size and design in the Central Texas region. With over 130,000 square feet of premium space for mission critical IT operations and disaster recovery services, Texas 1 is fed by two 400 megawatt-capable substations from two power plants on the Texas Power Grid, making it the most reliable facility for wholesale and retail data center outsourcing.

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Building the Mechanical Plant

Since our last post, Texas 1’s state-of-the-art mechanical plant has begun to take shape. The chilled water system design allows for maximum cooling flexibility from standard single cabinet deployments to high density configurations. Even the most complex High Performance Computing (HPC) environments can be properly cooled in Texas 1.

Beginning with two diverse water feeds, cooling at Texas 1 is designed to be inherently resilient:

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The Generators Have Arrived!

State-of-the-art power management is a requirement for any data center to run smoothly and efficiently. It is imperative for a data center to ensure ALL back up methods are in place. Therefore, selecting a data center’s backup generators is of utmost importance to ensure that all servers remain running no matter what.

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Texas 1 Data Center - Customized Space

Texas 1 is designed to accommodate any sized colocation configuration – from just a few cabinets to larger spaces for wholesale deployments.

Below are some pictures of a section of the data center dedicated to large custom configurations. Clients can choose caged space or dedicated private suites, depending on their unique requirements. Texas 1’s data-caged area offers secure, cordoned-off space accessible only by the client and customized to meet specific requirements. Dedicated private data suites offer premium wholesale options with complete privacy from 2,500 SF. All options can be optimized to ensure the most efficient configuration.

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Breaking Design Barriers

Fifty-ton Computer Room Air Handler (CRAH) units will provide enough cooling to support full data center operations at Texas 1. Engineered for round-the-clock operation, energy efficient CRAH units coupled with raised floors throughout the facility will distribute chilled air to data center aisles and racks. With energy efficient measures embedded into the design at every level, Texas 1 is truly breaking all barriers in the typical data center design.

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Getting It Right

Over the past two weeks in Data Center Dynamics, we have been featured in an article series titled ‘How to Select a Chiller,’ offering step-by-step instructions for selecting the most energy efficient chiller for your data center. Data Foundry has put this same carefully calculated methodology into practice with the planning and engineering of our Texas 1 data center. As the mechanical plant can account for one of the largest areas of non-IT energy consumption, it is important to get it right – saving on time, resources, and energy throughout the life of the facility. To download the How to Select a Chiller series, please click here.

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UPS Rooms

The Thanksgiving holiday gave all of our Texas 1 construction crew members a nice break from all of their hard work. This week, though, we are back to work! Continuing with the exciting momentum to close 2010, the stage is being set to make 2011 a remarkable year for Data Foundry.

Today, we’d like to bring special focus to Texas 1’s Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems, which are integral in providing emergency power should an input power source fail. A UPS is different from typical emergency power systems and standby generators in that it provides instantaneous protection from input power interruptions.

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See Redundancy In Action

Used to securely house electrical wires, telecom cables and lit fiber, along with heating, ventilation and air-conditioning ducts, conduits provide protection for some of the most critical components of a data center. Safely tucked away underneath the data center, the conduits are a maze of pathways neatly organized to carry the necessary elements that make the data center hum. Texas 1’s motto includes ‘full redundancy at every level’—from power feeds to telecommunication cables – all are engineered for diverse entry points into the data center along with multiple pathways for added reliability.

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The Generator Rooms

Construction has begun on the Generator Rooms. These rooms will house the generators to ensure there is always a redundant power supply within Texas 1 to support the heating, cooling and electrical hubs. This is the future home to six generators, which will provide over 12-megawatts of power.

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Mechanical Plant

The Mechanical Plant is the infrastructure used to support and maintain a data center facility, including the heating, cooling and electrical hubs on which the data center runs. Texas 1 has carefully architected and engineered its Mechanical Plant to be reinforced, secure, and fully redundant at all levels to ensure operations are always up and running.

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