Modular data center demonstrates its flexibility and agility

For most enterprise data center operations managers today, modularity means they can quickly deploy container technology to fill gaps in their infrastructure. But few realize that the technology has matured into a completely flexible solution that can be used in custom designs to accommodate the operational operations of any enterprise data center. In this article, Glenn Conlon, director of business development from Cannon Technologies, will look at how to help enterprise data center operations managers build more flexible and agile data centers with pre-designed modules and pre-built containers.

The rise of modular solutions

The cost of building and maintaining an enterprise data center is quite high. For those data centers that have been built for many years, they will also need to be reconfigured and refurbished to be able to respond flexibly to the changing needs of next-generation hardware and enterprise services. The construction and refurbishment of an enterprise data center building can take anywhere from a few months to a few years, and it is clearly a very inflexible solution.

Once the data center building is completed, it is a “dead” concrete building. When market demand changes, it cannot move, but it must rely on it to handle the needs of these changes. As more and more major disasters, large-scale sports events and cultural events, and even small business needs depend on the adoption of appropriate technologies, the data center industry needs to adopt a series of better solutions.

For modular data centers. It was originally designed around a container that could be loaded into trucks, ships or even aircraft to transport the container containers where they were needed. Corporate customers, event organizers, emergency rescue managers, and even government agencies are using this flexible approach to solve their own problems.

The modular data center provides a fast solution for solving the problems associated with various users mentioned above. The container containers can be stacked vertically or laterally together. All they need is a concrete mat so they can be connected to the power supply and the network. No planning permission is required, and there is no need to spend huge sums of money to purchase an existing data center building. The reconfiguration only means replacing one container with another. These containers are of standard size and have a return on investment. (ROI) is measured in months, not in years.

Evolution of modular construction

The success of modular construction has led to the industrial standardization of building facilities. They are no longer limited to the size of shipping container containers. Instead, they can meet almost any size required by the customer, as long as these modular data centers can be smoothly transported to the needs of the relevant business. These modular data centers are perfectly matched to all the data center infrastructure they need, such as power supplies, cooling facilities, server racks and network trays when they are built and pre-installed.

In some cases, end-user devices, such as switches, servers, and storage devices, can be installed in advance at a modular factory to ultimately deliver complete, fully tested modules directly to the customer. But when the module arrives, these modules will be fixed in place, connected to the power supply, network and additional cooling equipment (if needed). This approach to LEGO bricks is a key effect of modularly built data centers.

At the same time, this approach to LEGO bricks is a limitation for some other customers. The method requires a suitably constructed mat to place the modular container thereon, the modular container is moved into position using a crane, and the operating space of the data center is thereby completed. The entire data center facility has been planned as a growing modular body that can expand the data center operations space by adding new modules (or by reducing the size of the module). But in fact, not every corporate customer has the opportunity to do so, not every module has the opportunity to come to the workspace so that corporate customers can achieve this goal.

Fine-grained data center

Currently, an alternative to pre-built module data centers is a fine-grained data center. The end result is the same: create a module that contains the hardware needed for the enterprise customer data center, which can be built into the data center operating environment space that the enterprise customer has.

The difference between fine-grained construction and modular construction is very simple. We can think of fine-grained as a flat, integrated data center. The relevant components are pre-designed and shipped to the customer’s location in the same manner as flat furniture. At a fine-grained data center site, a team of engineers can assemble a fine-grained data center using handheld tools and simple lifting equipment. No cranes are needed, and heavy lifting equipment is not needed.

When building a fine-grained data center, engineers can also adjust it to accommodate unexpected road conditions, stairs, and other issues that are not considered in advance or affect the continued health operations and safety requirements of the data center. Related questions. This makes it an ideal choice for retrofitting businesses in existing buildings, warehouses, and even data center interiors or underground parking lots. The use of smaller kits also means that a fine-grained data center can be built on the roof or on any confined space.

When assembling internal components and walls, the build allows the device to be built into a fine-grained data center. Let’s continue with the analogy of the flat design mentioned above, which is no more complicated than building a flat integrated kitchen and adding key equipment. Only, in this case, these devices are no longer cookware, dishwashers, refrigerators and washing machines, just replaced by power, cooling, racks, servers, storage, and switches.

There is no difference in overall installation time, but project planning must be flexible

Choosing a modularly built data center, most of the design and assembly tasks will be carried out by the suppliers of the modular data center at their factory. After arriving at the enterprise customer data center site, it usually takes several hours from the start of preparation for the proper installation of the corresponding modules and equipment.

In the case of a data center built in a fine-grained model, the relevant components are provided directly by the vendor and can typically be delivered to the enterprise customer data center site within a few days. If there are special requirements to deal with specific design constraints, such as highly insulated walls to reduce noise or to handle hot/cold climates, these may take longer. In any case, these components can be quickly shipped to the enterprise customer data center site and assembled together.

Modular and fine-grained build solutions provide flexibility and grow with this business development

Both modularity and granularity provide the flexibility and enable enterprise data centers to scale their data centers as their business needs grow. Different from the traditional data center method, in this method, if the resources are over-provisioned, the enterprise data center will often suffer serious losses due to the insufficient utilization of the data processing hall. With modular and fine-grained construction schemes, enterprise customers can Deploy as much infrastructure as possible based on actual IT needs.

The growth in business demand means that enterprise customers can add more modules or use fine-grained granularity to deploy additional capacity in any data center operations space they already have. Instead of renovating the data processing hall, you can add new modules or replace modules with modules that are more suitable for new requirements.

By adopting a fine-grained build scenario, you can change the design or deploy a new, fine-grained build to another space in the same location. This allows enterprise customers to further leverage the building areas they previously considered unsuitable for use in data centers.

If the needs of the data center change, such as due to changes in the business premises or the need to move workloads to the cloud, there will be markets that use modular solutions. Fine-grained data centers can also be disassembled and resold.

In conclusion

Modular and fine-grained data center solutions are cost-effective, flexible, and more adaptable to changes in IT requirements than traditional data centers. It is very easy to debug and install them without the complexity of planning licenses and the large amount of construction costs in the early stages, as well as the high administrative costs, which makes them very attractive to current businesses.

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