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Vertiv has released a whitepaper, according to which, standardisation will become the default approach not only for the enterprise, but also for hyperscale datacentres and the network's edge, ranging from modular components such as power and cooling modules and skids to full-fledged prefabricated facilities.
“Focusing on sustainability and making datacentres more energy efficient has been a priority for the industry for many years now”, said Shirang Deshpande, Country Head, Strategic Programmes, Vertiv. “At Vertiv, we have always prioritised innovation to ensure our products and solutions align with the business requirements of our customers. Through these white papers, we offer data center providers support and guidance on the latest trends and strategies and how they can positively impact overall business performance.”
The Case for Prefabricated Design
The increased popularity of modular datacentre design is not surprising. By moving construction and integration off site, those tasks can be performed under tightly controlled factory conditions by trained specialists. This can happen while on-site preparation continues, compressing construction timelines. Reducing the time on a project reduces the cost of that project and improves overall total cost of ownership (TCO) by shortening the time to revenue. Factory integration also tends to reduce service issues and costs.
Modern prefabricated modules are sleek, fully integrated, efficient building blocks. They are increasingly common choices for new datacentres or additions to existing facilities. In fact, according to the Omdia research, 79% of those who have deployed some type of prefabricated solution said they had deployed this type of all-in-one module.
Today’s hyperscale datacentres operators are increasingly embracing the benefits of standardised design. To be clear, these are not cookie cutter datacentres by any stretch, but as these operators race to add capacity to existing facilities or build new datacentres, they are more open to standardised design features than ever before.
As the hyperscale datacentres community - a relatively small group, despite the size of their datacentres — sees these advantages play out, they are increasingly accepting and even seeking out ways to reduce their deployment timelines and costs through standardised, often prefabricated, designs and components. More and more, conversations with hyperscale customers start with, “What’s your standard design?” From there, the modules can be configured to the specifications of a given customer, and that design can be repeated across deployments.
Exploring the Hybrid Approach
There are several advantages to a hybrid design. These modules and skids can be installed in new builds or in retrofits of existing datacentres. They deliver the customary benefits that come with other PMDC design approaches — reduced deployment timelines and repeatable, reliable construction with fewer service calls. Additionally, depending on the architecture, they can reduce the physical footprint of the systems they replace by as much as 30%, creating additional white space for revenue-generating equipment.
There is another important distinction with power modules. In most cases, because they are fully integrated prefabricated systems, they are considered equipment rather than part of the building. This simplifies compliance with building codes, standards and regulations. Traditional installations are subject to those codes.
Finally, the modules can be designed to optimize performance in ways traditional systems simply can’t. For example, power modules are an electrical component, but they can be designed with enhanced thermal properties — using aisle containment principles, for example. This type of optimisation improves the overall thermal profile of the facility and reduces energy use and costs associated to cooling. Cooling skids are custom designed to provide additional capacity to an existing site or to upgrade cooling in an entire facility to support increased capacity and improved efficiency.
The hybrid approach can reduce footprint by 30% over a traditionally constructed building and radically shorten construction timelines - potentially by as much as half. This repeatable approach can also increase facility energy efficiency, eliminate the need for lengthy building code inspections and improve system reliability through factory construction and testing. The benefits have motivated both enterprise data center operators and hyperscalers to embrace standardization broadly and hybrid designs more specifically.