CASE STUDY in capacity to 3.6MW on the middle floor – without affecting the live customer load .
“ Serverfarm ’ s LON1 data centre is one of the most efficient , sustainable and highly connected multitenant mission critical colocation sites within the M25 . Living up to its reputation , i 3 Solutions Group brought valuable experience and engineering expertise to Serverfarm ’ s LON1 data centre ,” said Jim Shanahan , Chief Operating Officer , Serverfarm .
Efficient cooling is essential
Following the acquisition of its first UK facility ,
international data centre operator , Serverfarm , turned to the expertise of specialist design engineering firm , i 3 Solutions Group , to modernise and optimise the facility . i 3 Solutions Group was given a set of objectives to transform the data centre to be achieved simultaneously . A facility upgrade was to be executed through the identification and delivery of additional power capacity . And , at the same time , i 3 was to help create a flexible , multi-tenant data centre ready for lowto high-density workloads ranging from 1 – 4kW per rack to 20kW per rack with a design PUE of below 1.2 .
Upgrade and expansion
The 120,000 sqft 6MW LON1 data centre located in Feltham , London , was acquired in March 2018 and within five and a half months i 3 had completed the modernisation . i 3 optimised the entire facility , creating a Tier3 + environment in terms of uptime and efficiency through cost-effective modernisation of electrical gear . New switches and UPS equipment were deployed to create N + 1 electrical infrastructure with A + B feeds combined with new super-efficient chillers and new CRAC units to create an N + 1 mechanical environment .
i 3 identified how to transform the cooling efficiency of the halls by moving from a single fixed volume chilled water circuit to primary and secondary variable circuits in a live environment . The chiller technology was changed from power-hungry , inefficient 15-year-old chillers , to variable speed TurboCor chillers with free cooling . This resulted in both lower energy use and greater environment control .
Serverfarm ’ s modernisation efforts in design , deployment and operation created a site capable of the efficient delivery of power densities that are aligned to modern workloads . The facility now meets modern customer demands for greater power densities , saving space , power and operational cost .
i 3 focused its expertise to identify and efficiently deliver additional data centre capacity to the Serverfarm LON1 modernisation project . This was achieved in months , enhancing the flexibility and value of the facility as a commercial colocation offering , as well as driving significant OpEx savings .
We caught up with Jim Shanahan , COO , Serverfarm , to find out more about the solution benefits and the modernisation project .
Can you tell us about your role at the company and how you contribute to ensuring business success ?
The firm ’ s experts looked at an original master plan for the site and identified the base design was to provide 6MW . i 3 design engineers ’ new design enabled increased capacity of the facility from 6MW to 10.8MW . The LON1 data centre is a multi-storey building with the middle floor occupied by a live customer . Working with live facilities brought new challenges to the already complex , critical facilities infrastructure engineering project .
I ’ m responsible for uptime – for keeping the lights on , keeping the business running and keeping our customers happy across our global data centre portfolio . I ’ m also responsible for business in EMEA as we expand . Until recently , we were mainly a UScentred company and we planted the flag in EMEA in 2018 . We ’ ve been steadily expanding since and one of my responsibilities is continuing that expansion – so driving business within EMEA . i 3 assessment indicated that this occupied data centre floor was operating below its original design capacity of 3MW due to ageing and missing equipment . A thorough refresh of the main plant , adding new UPSs and new chillers , enabled i 3 to achieve an increase
What was the driver behind the modernisation of the facility ?
This particular data centre in London was originally an enterprise data centre with a single tenant . As is
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