What are data centres?
In brief, data centres are specialised facilities designed to accommodate and manage computer systems, networking equipment, storage systems, and other components essential for processing, storing, and circulating large amounts of data. Serving as the pillar of modern computing infrastructure, these facilities support a wide range of applications and services across a variety of industries.
Essential features of data centres include:
- Server Racks and Hardware: Data centres contain rows of server racks, housing individual servers, along with networking equipment, for example, switches and routers, and storage devices such as disk arrays or solid-state drives (SSDs).
- Cooling Systems: Due to the high heat output generated by the equipment, data centres require sophisticated cooling systems to maintain optimal operating temperatures and prevent overheating – which would be disastrous. These cooling systems may include air conditioning units, chillers, or even liquid cooling solutions. Ventilation louvres are also incorporated to allow natural airflow.
- Power Infrastructure: Data centres require dependable power sources to ensure constant operation. They typically feature redundant power supplies, backup generators, and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems to provide continuous electricity in case of outages.
- Security Measures: For data centres, security is paramount due to the sensitive nature of the data they store and process. Data centres employ physical security measures such as access controls, surveillance cameras, and security guards, as well as cybersecurity measures to protect against unauthorised access and cyber threats.
- Redundancy and Resilience: To minimise the risk of downtime and data loss, data centres are often designed with redundant or surplus components and systems. This redundancy ensures that if one component fails, there are backup systems in place to maintain operations.
Where are data centres located?
Data centres can be based in any country and store and process data for a business or organisation on the other side of the world. Taking the UK as an example, the decision on where to locate data centres for the UK depends on a combination of regulatory requirements, performance considerations, risk management strategies, and business priorities. Each organisation will assess its specific needs and objectives when determining the most suitable location for its data infrastructure.
Although, presently, data centres for the UK don’t necessarily need to be based in the UK, but there are several factors to consider when deciding on their location:
- Data Sovereignty: Data sovereignty refers to the laws and regulations that govern data within a specific country. For UK clients, particularly those handling sensitive or personal data*, compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is vital. While GDPR allows for the transfer of data outside the UK, it requires that the receiving country guarantees an appropriate level of data protection. Therefore, many UK businesses prefer data centres within the UK to simplify compliance and reduce regulatory risks.
- Latency and Performance: The physical proximity of a data centre to its clients can significantly impact latency and performance including response time of applications and services. For applications requiring real-time processing or low-latency responses, hosing data centres closer to end-users can reduce latency, improve performance and user experience.
- Redundancy and Disaster Recovery: While primary data centres may be located in the UK, organisations can choose to distribute their data centres across multiple geographic locations therefor backup facilities could be situated in different regions or even countries to mitigate the risk of localised outages or disasters for redundancy and disaster recovery It’s worth noting that having local data centres can facilitate quicker recovery times and ensure business continuity in case of regional outages or disasters.
- Cost and Infrastructure: Factors such as property prices, energy costs, and availability of skilled labour can influence the decision to locate data centres in the UK or overseas. Some regions may offer more favourable conditions for building and operating data centres, leading organisations to consider international locations for their facilities.
- Economic and Political Stability: The economic and political stability of the host country is another important factor to consider. UK businesses may prefer data centres within the UK or in countries with stable political environments to ensure uninterrupted services and safeguard against geopolitical risks.
- Customer Trust and Preference: Some UK clients may have a preference or greater trust in data centres located within the UK due to perceived security, regulatory alignment, and support considerations. This trust can influence the choice of data service providers.
*While, as mentioned, data centres for UK clients can technically be located anywhere in the world, many businesses and organisations opt for UK-based or EU-based facilities to meet regulatory requirements, ensure performance, and build customer trust.
It’s worth noting that some organisations, especially those in regulated industries such as finance or healthcare, may have legal or compliance requirements that mandate data to be stored and processed within the UK borders, ensuring that data is subject to UK laws and regulations.
Of course, regulatory requirements are subject to changes and, there are calls to introduce tighter restrictions that will mean more UK industries, organisations and businesses are served by data centres based in the UK, especially where sensitive data is involved.
If UK regulations are tightened then more data centres would need to be built within the UK to meet demand.Top of Form
While the optimal temperature for data centres is between 18°C and 27°C, they can handle temperatures up to 32°C under normal conditions – this is often considered the upper limit for continuous safe operation to avoid overheating and potential equipment failure. In emergency situations most modern servers and networking equipment are built to handle short-term temperature spikes up to 35°C without immediate failure, although it’s not ideal and lengthy exposure can lead to hardware degradation.
To help mitigate overheating and the potential disastrous consequences, it’s vital that appropriate cooling and environmental management methods are implemented, which includes ventilation louvres.
They are essential for data centres around the world, including in the UK, for a number of reasons:
- Cooling Efficiency: Data centres generate a significant amount of heat due to the operation of servers and other equipment. Proper ventilation is essential to dissipate this heat and maintain optimal operating temperatures. Louvres enable the exchange of air, allowing for efficient cooling and preventing overheating of equipment.
- Air Quality: Adequate ventilation helps maintain good indoor air quality within data centres by circulating fresh air and expelling stale air. This is vital for preserving the integrity of sensitive electronic equipment and ensuring the comfort and health of staff working in the facility.
- Energy Efficiency: Effective ventilation systems can contribute to overall energy efficiency in data centres. By optimising airflow and cooling processes, louvres help reduce the need for mechanical cooling systems, resulting in reduced energy consumption thus leading to lower operating costs.
Using the UK as an example, where the climate is often characterised by cool temperatures and high humidity, proper ventilation becomes even more critical. Louvres play a vital role in managing airflow and moisture levels to ensure the efficient and reliable operation of data centres, particularly in environments where temperature and humidity control are challenging. Additionally, in regions prone to inclement and extremes of weather, louvres can also provide protection against elements such as rain and snow whilst still allowing for sufficient ventilation.
How do acoustic louvres benefit data centres?
Where the demand for efficient and reliable operations is ever-increasing, acoustic louvres have proved themselves to be a crucial component in the modern age of data centres. They are essential in data centres for mitigating noise pollution while also maintaining efficient airflow and ventilation which is explained in more detail below:
- Maintaining Airflow: With similar properties to ventilation louvres, acoustic louvres still allow for effective airflow while controlling noise. They enable the ventilation systems to work efficiently, ensuring that the data centre remains cool and that equipment operates within optimal temperature ranges.
- Regulatory Compliance: Many data centres are located in urban or residential areas where noise regulations are understandably strict. Acoustic louvres help data centre proprietors comply with local noise restrictions, preventing potential legal issues and community complaints.
- Energy Efficiency: By integrating acoustic louvres, data centres can maintain efficient cooling systems without having to rely heavily on supplementary noise control measures. This can lead to energy savings as the cooling systems can operate more effectively and without disruption.
- Protection from Environmental Elements: As with standard louvres, acoustic louvres also protect against rain, dust, and debris ingress, ensuring that these elements do not enter the data centre potentially harming sensitive and often expensive equipment. This dual functionality makes them highly effective in maintaining the overall integrity and performance of the data centre.
To summarise, acoustic louvres offer substantial benefits for data centres by reducing noise pollution, maintaining efficient airflow, improving energy efficiency, ensuring regulatory compliance and safeguarding against environmental elements.
Solinear’s bespoke louvre system is perfect choice for new NTT data centre
Promoted as “delivering reliable, secure connectivity in the London area”, NTT – the third-largest data centre provider in the world – offers a new data centre with 25,600m² of data centre server space in the first building and 64MW of critical IT load. NTT’S London 1 Data Centre, located in Dagenham on the edge of London, but close to the Docklands office centres, joins the existing data centres they presently operate in Hemel Hempstead and Slough.
The London hub connects into NTT’s Global Data Centre Interconnect (GDCI), delivering a cross-regional data centre network and private secure connection to major cloud service providers.
With a commitment to sustainability including the construction and operation of its data centres, NTT Ltd intends to achieve net zero emissions by 2040. The net zero emissions target applies to all operations across the group and its subsidiaries by 2030 and will encompass the wider value chain by 2040.
The award winning Solinear team was delighted to be approached to design and manufacture an extensive bespoke horizontal louvre system that would envelop the building and include coordinating double louvre doors.
Solinear’s Aquarius™ X-line 100 single bank louvre system offers the perfect solution for the requirements of the project as the practicalities of this louvre system means that it is beneficial where high levels of plant screening or air volumes are required to pass through the louvre with corresponding low pressure drops.
Ventilation and acoustic louvres include screening properties which assist in deterring potential trespassers as they help to enhance security by concealing essential infrastructure and reducing the visibility of sensitive areas.
The louvre blades mounted on to ‘hidden’ vertical support mullions, provide a smooth, continuous, and unbroken appearance on the exterior of this monumental building, therefore, alongside the obvious practical benefits, aesthetics are also a key feature. The bespoke elements of this project include multiple RAL colour finishes; RAL 140 80 05 – also known as ‘Willow Green’ (part of the RAL Design colour deck); RAL 6003 – a dark greyish chartreuse green colour also known as ‘Olive Green’ and RAL 6025 – also known as ‘Fern Green’ (both part of the ‘Green Hues’ category in the RAL Classic colour system).
From an architectural standpoint, Solinear’s bespoke Aquarius™ X-line 100 louvres – including multiple RAL colour finishes – improve the visual appeal of NTT’s data centre by providing a sleek and striking modern facade.
*At the time of blog publication, this project is in progress. Further updates including completed project photos and a case study will be available upon completion of the project.
Conclusion
Data centres play a crucial role in supporting various digital services and applications, including cloud computing, media streaming, e-commerce, social media and enterprise IT infrastructure. They enable organisations to store and process vast amounts of data efficiently, scale their operations as needed, and deliver high-performance computing services to users around the world and, as demand for this technology increases so does the need for more, or
expanded, facilities to offer these services.
Data centres are known for consuming a significant amount of energy driven by the need to power servers, storage devices, networking equipment, and mechanical cooling systems and data centres worldwide are estimated to annually consume about 200 terawatt-hours (TWh), which is roughly 1% of global electricity demand. This consumption is comparable to the total energy use of some countries and, despite advances in energy efficiency and cooling technologies the growth in data centres has understandably led to a corresponding increase in energy consumption.
Many modern data centres strive for a PUE of around 1.2 to 1.5 (Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is a metric used to gauge the energy efficiency of data centres. A PUE of 1.0 indicates perfect efficiency, where all energy is used for computing purposes.), meaning that for every watt of computing power, an additional 0.2 to 0.5 watts are used for cooling and other infrastructure needs.
Along with a greater demand for more data centres, is the need for the associated supporting infrastructure including environmental control of the interior space, allowing optimal functionality of equipment, however, creating a suitable environment for what is already an energy hungry facility incurs further costs.
Cooling is a major factor in the energy consumption of data centres. Traditional air conditioning systems are energy-intensive, leading many data centres to adopt more efficient cooling methods such as evaporative cooling, liquid cooling, and free cooling, which uses outside air when temperatures are suitable, along with specialised ventilation louvre systems.
These louvres are designed not only to facilitate optimal airflow and cooling but also to significantly reduce noise pollution generated by high-powered servers and cooling systems. This dual functionality ensures that data centres maintain a quiet and conducive working environment for personnel, while also adhering to noise regulations, especially in urban or residential areas. Furthermore, by mitigating acoustic disturbances, acoustic louvres enhance the overall operational efficiency and sustainability of data centres, making them an indispensable feature in the design and maintenance of these critical infrastructures.
Sustainability is a major consideration and passive ventilation methods along with investing in renewable energy sources help to mitigate the environmental impact of data centres, some of which are powered entirely by renewable energy, while others purchase renewable energy credits to offset their carbon footprint. Additionally, efforts are being made to improve energy efficiency through improved design, advanced cooling techniques, and the use of more efficient hardware.
In summary, while data centres are substantial consumers of energy, ongoing advancements in technology, adopting passive cooling methods and a strong focus on sustainability are helping to manage and reduce their environmental impact.
