June 2007

The great New Zealand data centre build-out

New Zealand could be undergoing its biggest ever data centre capacity increase as operators across the country build and rebuild their facilities to increase quality, deliver new services and to deal with new technology.

At the end of this month, ISP and data centre operator Orcon, which is based in Auckland, will open its new state-of-the-art facility, while Revera has built new matching facilities in Auckland and Wellington.  

The Orcon facility was designed and built by Auckland-based company Aline. Project manager Les Day says most data centre customers really don’t know what they need.
“It used to be that fibre cabling was the jewel in the crown of the data centre,” he says. “Now it’s power and airconditioning.”   That’s because of the arrival of more powerful — and power-hungry — servers permits a massive intensification of processing capacity. Day says racks have gone from being simple shelves to hold servers to being a piece of architecture, designed to allow air to cool the equipment inside. Racks and their design are now one of the most important features of a data centre, he says.  

In addition, every company’s needs and situation are different and racks may have to be customised. Orcon’s racks can manage a mix of standard and blade servers, while another data centre that Aline built recently, for Deutsche Bank, was a pure blade environment, in which the racks are enclosed.  

“It’s a different type where the air is forced into the rack and not allowed to escape,” he says.   Revera chief executive Wayne Norrie (Computerworld, May 14) agrees, saying the 1980s-style data centre is “not able to cope” as server density increases. Revera’s cooling approach is based on an Italian model which, he says, focuses on the cool air rather than the hot.   Air has to pass across the blades at the right speed to provide maximum cooling efficiency, he says.  

“It’s not just blowing air down an aisle,” he says. “No cold air is wasted and it’s controlled and directed dynamically and none escapes.”  

Revera’s new data centres, in Auckland and Wellington, will each be able to house north of 6,000 servers and with virtualisation each physical server can accommodate up to 10 virtual servers, delivering a range of benefits to users.