Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 21 | Page 32

EDITOR’S QUESTION HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS ADAPT THEIR DATA CENTRE OPERATIONS TO BECOME MORE ECO-FRIENDLY? ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// K ao Data has excelled at the Datacloud Global Awards, winning the ‘Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility’ category, against entries from around the world. This is a major achievement for Kao Data and demonstrates its commitment to principles of responsible business capability, customer service and, crucially, its environmental sustainability. The judges highlighted the selection of location and regional climate considerations in the development of the UK’s first 100% free-cooling data centre. We spoke to Gerard Thibault, CTO, Kao Data, to find out more about the company’s work, while three industry experts tackle this month’s burning question. Achieving ‘Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility’ at Datacloud 2019 underlines a long-standing commitment and demonstrates the effectiveness of Kao Data’s business processes and responsibility to improve operational performance, provide increased assurance and reduce the environmental impact of the data centre. 32 INTELLIGENTCIO From the outset, the team at Kao Data considered sustainability, ecological impact and energy efficiency as demonstrated by the achievement of BREEAM ‘Excellent’ award for DC1, part of the four-building, 35MW IT power capacity campus. Both design and construction phases of the project reviewed by the BRE with their ‘Energy Assessment Method’, confirmed the benefits of the 1.2 ultra-low PUE achieved by the Technology Suite ‘free cooling’ system. Utilising a system with no mechanical refrigeration eliminates any global warming potential (GWP) gases, years before the F-gas regulations bans their use. Highly efficiently engineered, the complexity of both mechanical and electrical infrastructure is reduced, along with the power capacity of the electrical distribution and back-up power generation. This drives a reduction in material usage and potential pollution in emergency power failure scenarios. Coupled with the climate in the geographical location, Kao Data can meet the requirements of ASHRAE TC 9.9 ‘recommended’ environmental conditions throughout the year even at the extremes and into the future. Operating at the ‘allowable’ envelope brings further reductions in energy consumption and even without the benefit of having secured a 100% renewable energy power contract with EDF (operating with carbon neutrality), the overall carbon footprint of the data centre is reduced. As a strategic business opportunity, the design reflects the ’best practices’ that Open Compute Project endorses, which allowed Kao Data to be the first UK OCP-Ready facility. Operating at the ASHRAE ‘allowable’ range is an ‘optimum’ requirement of the self- assessment protocol, in which Kao Data DC1 scored 75% at ‘optimal’ or above, by including gaseous contaminant monitoring. Adoption of OCP principles produces a hyperscale inspired design, harnessing the largest growth sector of the data centre market, a Kao Data target customer group. The Kao Data London One has a commitment to creating a more sustainability aware industry, which results in a highly scalable, ultra-efficient, regulation- complaint and customer-focused site. www.intelligentcio.com