In order to alleviate our somewhat mixed feelings about this new addition to our array of hardware, we chose to travel by electric car to the data center in order to install the equipment. Since it was launched in Amsterdam some months ago, an electric Smart car sharing scheme has become very popular among several employees of Greenhost. The driving range of an electric Smart car proved to be more than adequate for a return trip to Haarlem

The server, which just about fit in the trunk, is an IBM X3550 M3 server with 144GB memory and 8 CPU cores. These types of machine

                          

One discussion I was particularly involved in was around the idea that clients aren’t asking for modular and ‘green’ approaches from real estate giants. My counterpoint to this argument was that without utilising the modular approach, clients potentially miss the great CAPEX opportunity that this typically offers. Equally, from an OPEX perspective, the modular benefits of free cooling and reduced temperatures are unexploited. It is therefore the responsibility of the datacenter industry to educate customers on these issues as they often fall under the radar of many CIOs and CFOs, which is therefore the reason many businesses don’t opt for them.

With regards to the green business agenda, the market has now reached a point where if businesses aren’t seen to be proactive in this space, local governments across Europe will starts to demand and implement legislation around it. Amsterdam, for example, requires a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of between 1.3 and 1.4, with the UK similarly, experiencing a rise in the business ethos that green = cost leadership. However, I believe once achieving a PUE of 1.2 and below, datacenter facility owners should begin looking at WUE (water usage and water source), optimising their IT usage and linking together facility and IT segments to optimise overall performance.

Day 2 saw the first panel to touch on cloud. Discussions placed emphasis on expected growth in the enterprise IT sector; arguing growth will cause the move towards wholesale rather than full cloud. This is mainly due to lack of trust from organisations such as government bodies and financial organisations, but fortunately, this was widely anticipated not to affect datacenter growth.

The panel furthered the discussion and moved to argue that the customer is not asking for green power. I found this particularly interesting, as I pointed out, Greenpeace and government regulations will force the usage of green power in the not so distant future. No one had read Greenpeace’s cloud report, either! Fortunately, the majority of the audience supported my view, as did they on Twitter. Also, Government tax will be a much larger issue for businesses, especially if we look at the positive tax climate in Amsterdam and Dublin, which is driving companies like Microsoft and Amazon to those regions.

Following two solid days of debate and deep industry insight, the event finished on a great high, highlighting predictions for the future of the cloud and datacenter industry. According to the final panel, the future for the market looks like this:

• Full modular design rollout
• Outside cooling
• Near sustainable energy sources
• High density (>20kW / server racks)
• The demise of the ‘mega datacenter’ in favour of grids of smaller ones

For more information about EvoSwitch’s datacenter developments, and our latest product offerings, please contact our sales team who we be more than happy to discuss this with you. We look forward to hearing from you.

                          

The problem is most datacenters are old, and updating these buildings is costly and complicated for both the datacenter and its clients.  But new build datacenters are introducing more and more innovative design to help reduce PUE, a consequential fall out cost for the client. Innovative design and investment in research and development is vital for the industry.  Here are a few things to look out for if you’re in search of a new, sustainable datacenter.

ADIABATIC COOLING

Datacenters require continual cooling, and this level of electricity consumption is the main source of power within the buildings.  New buildings and developed datacenters often use a variety of cooling methods, with adiabatic cooling systems being one popular choice to decrease energy consumption and increase efficiency.  An adiabatic process, in scientific terms, is one where the net heat transfer to or from the working fluid is zero, meaning energy lost through heat loss is zero.  It is a highly efficient process.  Adiabatic cooling is typically only required when the outside air temperature exceeds 24 Celsius. In countries such as the Netherlands where external temperatures rarely exceed 24 Celsius, outside air does not require regulating for data center cooling.

But how does it work?  The principle is based on cooling outside air upon entry to the datacenter or module rather than traditional cooling methods, which chill entire rooms.  Air enters a datacenter from the outside and is forced through a filter.  The surface of this filter is wet and as the air passes through, the water evaporates, cooling the air in the process.

Optimum temperatures within a datacenter are between 24 and 29 degrees Celsius.  However, only the servers need to be cooled and so modern datacenters use cool corridors to ensure only the space required is cooled rather than the entire datacenter, thereby increasing operational efficiency.

Designing these modules and cooling facilities in this way means that the electricity used to keep a datacenter cool is minimal.

MODULAR BUILDING

‘Modular’ building has been the datacenter buzzword for last year now, and describes large, portable prefabricated datacenters designed for rapid and cost effective deployment to better meet the flexibility demands and energy efficiencies of the ever cost-conscious client. These first generation datacenter containers as they were called (1.0) have fuelled the modular approach and were the first steps towards satisfying market expectations. These large 20 or 40 ft. ‘1.0 version’ modules come in a variety of forms and are available with or without servers. The popular, pre-installed option in particular, allows for anywhere up to 2,500 servers. This ‘building block’ approach has been typically adopted by heavy users such as Microsoft and Google, which opt for pre-installed servers. Early modular data centers without pre-installed servers however are more commonly used for rental and emergency solutions. Over time these building blocks grew into a technique that today known as modular building.

Each building block is fitted with its own, independent cooling system consisting of chilling, ventilating or air-conditioning devices where appropriate. Modular datacenters (2.0) these days follow similar lines to the prior format but vastly scale the principle upwards to full facility level; making it the most efficient datacenter model available that meets market demand.

From a cost perspective, a business’ physical capital expenditure is typically rigid. Office space, for example, is a costly and serious consideration in terms of physical expansion to support business growth. In the digital asset space, modular expansion rationalises capital expenditure, offering a more cost-effective approach parallel to demand. This in turn reduces the required upfront investment to release capital for reinvesting back into the business.  Resources can be managed on a demand basis, meaning that the organisation is only using what it requires at that given time.

Popularity of the modular model predominantly revolves around its cost-saving benefits; however, we are helping our customers realise other, more practical implications.

Businesses typically consider convenience as a key factor in the decision-making process, as it is usually intrinsically linked to cost. However, modular datacenters address this factor by reducing construction time from years to a matter of months, enabling expansion to be implemented when needed. The new module can be selected to meet specific criteria such as capacity, efficiency and so on.

Gradual modular expansion in line with growth inherently ensures the datacenter is running the latest and most innovative technology. IT lifecycles within a typical datacenter see server replacement adhering to an average 3 year refresh cycle, with building facilities lasting slightly longer at around 10 years. Entire sections of the datacenter can therefore be, in time, simply replaced with next-generation technologies for minimal disruption to operations, as data can be quickly transferred to another module within the current datacenter rather than to a remote backup site.

Modular expansion enables greater business control over IT and cost management with expansion being implemented parallel to customer demand. Datacenter providers such as EvoSwitch currently incorporate the modular model into the construction and expansion of its datacenters to ensure it meets customer demand on a dynamic basis. The key driver, as with most providers, is to reduce overheads and upfront investment which EvoSwitch is then able to pass directly onto its customers. Modular datacenter options are enabling providers to be more flexible and therefore better able to meet the demands of their cost-conscious customers in this still struggling economy.

                          

In recent years, as servers have increased in capacity and speed, the amount of heat generated has increased massively. This means datacenters need to work harder than ever to maintain an optimum temperature.

Datacenters need to offer these high-capacity, fast servers to meet customer demand, but using this technology creates real issues around energy consumption and efficiency. First and foremost, in many cases, is the issue of cost – powering cooling systems is expensive, so anything a company can do that reduces the need for cooling has to be a good thing.

Cooling is particularly expensive in older datacenters, which were not necessarily designed with efficient energy use in mind. For example, in older datacenters it is common to have cooling systems for an entire room. The problem with this approach is that it creates a mixture of hot and cold air, with no directed flow – meaning heat generated by the servers is not efficiently extracted. The result is wasted energy and problems maintaining a regular temperature, which can in turn, impact on the performance of servers themselves.

In this kind of non-optimised environment, energy costs are significantly higher. For example, a dual-processor PC server might use 265 watts of electricity per hour, but cooling could add an additional 135 watts to this figure. Over four years, the energy cost of running this kind of server can reach 50% of the cost of the hardware itself.

Older datacenters can also be less efficient in their basic structure. If the walls of the building offer poor insulation, then heat can pass through the walls at an alarming rate, meaning more demand for cooling, and higher energy costs.

Making Greener Energy Choices

Fortunately, the datacenter industry has worked hard to develop new approaches to design and cooling that mean it is possible to significantly reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency and environmental performance.

Research shows that using these technologies, and improving the design of datacenters can deliver energy savings of up to 80% over a traditional datacenter.

Sources of advice and information about reducing energy waste in the datacenter include The Green Grid, the Climate Neutral Group and the European Commission Code of Conduct for Datacenters. EvoSwitch works with all of these groups, and we are always looking for ways to make our technology and designs as energy efficient as possible.

The Climate Neutral Group is an environmental initiative that works with datacenters and organisations on projects that help to restore the world’s CO₂ balance, such as planting trees and developing new biogas projects which help to neutralise emissions in the atmosphere. These small steps all help to counteract energy emissions from datacenters.

Companies can also make ‘greener’ choices when investing in new technologies. The Green Grid is a global consortium of ICT suppliers that are pushing for more efficient technologies in datacenters. The Green Grid finances current and new investments in green technologies and also works to provide customers with affordable energy services.

Green energy plays an important role in generating more environmentally friendly energy. Many companies utilise green electricity from suppliers including the Delta Power Company, which generates power from sustainable energy sources, such as wind, sun and biomass.

To help businesses understand their energy consumption, the Green Grid also introduced Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), a metric that measures the efficiency of datacenters by comparing total energy consumed to the amount of energy that actually reaches the IT equipment. This process can highlight just how much energy is lost en route, through cooling, for example.

Well-designed datacenters can save customers substantial amounts of energy, reducing costs. Many new datacenters can obtain a PUE of 1.2, which is a massive reduction compared with traditional datacenters. Over time, companies should work to reduce energy costs, save customers money, while also reducing the carbon based emissions. Using state of the art modular box environments, EvoSwitch now utilises adiabatic cooling to provide the highest energy efficiency possible to customers.

Reducing Energy Consumption

Of course, while green energy is important, it is equally important for datacenters to try and conserve power, and reduce consumption.

Datacenters typically need to run 24/7, but with some innovative design, it is possible to introduce small changes that make a big difference. For example, high frequency lighting (30,000Hz) with sensors that automatically switch lights off when nobody is around are a simple way to ensure power is not wasted unnecessarily.

Companies can also reduce consumption by taking advantage of some of the innovations in cooling systems. Many datacenters now use cold aisle corridors, in which racks are isolated from the rest of the data hall in enclosed units to prevent a ‘short circuit’ of hot and cold air , which would result in wasted energy. By isolating the front of the servers with a roof and sliding doors at each end of the corridor, it is possible to create a fully sealed unit which allows the front of the servers to be cooled, and the cold air to be pushed through to the back of the racks to be efficiently exhausted.

The advantage of cold aisle corridors is that cold air cannot escape from the sealed unit, and is not wasted by being released into the warm air of the server room –reducing overall energy efficiency.  When creating cold corridors it is possible to raise the overall ambient temperature of the datacenter to as much as 22-25 degrees Celsius, without affecting the cold corridor, which reduces energy consumption even further.

In the most advanced datacenters, it is also possible to take advantage of free cooling, which uses cold air from outside the datacenter to chill corridors. This works particularly well in countries with cooler climates such as the Netherlands, where ambient temperatures are below 15 degrees Celsius for most of the year.

Free cooling offers a substantial cost saving over traditional cooling and is particularly valuable if companies choose to locate their datacenters in locations that emphasise high quality and energy efficient hosting. Ultimately, these companies will find that centres located in such places provide high performance, extremely efficiently.  The new wave of carbon-neutral datacenters are working hard towards becoming consistently ‘green’ at all levels, reducing power consumption and costs, while increasing efficiency. At EvoSwitch, we implement a range of cutting-edge, green technologies that allow us to be as energy-efficient as possible, and to share the financial and environmental benefits of these investments with our customers. In the current financial and political climate, we believe only those datacenters taking such steps will continue to provide the highest value for customers.

Datacenters are notoriously power hungry. What might surprise you to learn is that the most power-hungry element of the typical datacenter is not the servers at all – but the cooling systems that are needed to prevent the servers from over-heating.

In recent years, as servers have increased in capacity and speed, the amount of heat generated has increased massively. This means datacenters need to work harder than ever to maintain an optimum temperature.

Datacenters need to offer these high-capacity, fast servers to meet customer demand, but using this technology creates real issues around energy consumption and efficiency. First and foremost, in many cases, is the issue of cost – powering cooling systems is expensive, so anything a company can do that reduces the need for cooling has to be a good thing.

Cooling is particularly expensive in older datacenters, which were not necessarily designed with efficient energy use in mind. For example, in older datacenters it is common to have cooling systems for an entire room. The problem with this approach is that it creates a mixture of hot and cold air, with no directed flow – meaning heat generated by the servers is not efficiently extracted. The result is wasted energy and problems maintaining a regular temperature, which can in turn, impact on the performance of servers themselves.

In this kind of non-optimised environment, energy costs are significantly higher. For example, a dual-processor PC server might use 265 watts of electricity per hour, but cooling could add an additional 135 watts to this figure. Over four years, the energy cost of running this kind of server can reach 50% of the cost of the hardware itself.

Older datacenters can also be less efficient in their basic structure. If the walls of the building offer poor insulation, then heat can pass through the walls at an alarming rate, meaning more demand for cooling, and higher energy costs.

Making Greener Energy Choices

Fortunately, the datacenter industry has worked hard to develop new approaches to design and cooling that mean it is possible to significantly reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency and environmental performance.

Research shows that using these technologies, and improving the design of datacenters can deliver energy savings of up to 80% over a traditional datacenter.

Sources of advice and information about reducing energy waste in the datacenter include The Green Grid, the Climate Neutral Group and the European Commission Code of Conduct for Datacenters. EvoSwitch works with all of these groups, and we are always looking for ways to make our technology and designs as energy efficient as possible.

The Climate Neutral Group is an environmental initiative that works with datacenters and organisations on projects that help to restore the world’s CO₂ balance, such as planting trees and developing new biogas projects which help to neutralise emissions in the atmosphere. These small steps all help to counteract energy emissions from datacenters.

Companies can also make ‘greener’ choices when investing in new technologies. The Green Grid is a global consortium of ICT suppliers that are pushing for more efficient technologies in datacenters. The Green Grid finances current and new investments in green technologies and also works to provide customers with affordable energy services.

Green energy plays an important role in generating more environmentally friendly energy. Many companies utilise green electricity from suppliers including the Delta Power Company, which generates power from sustainable energy sources, such as wind, sun and biomass.

To help businesses understand their energy consumption, the Green Grid also introduced Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), a metric that measures the efficiency of datacenters by comparing total energy consumed to the amount of energy that actually reaches the IT equipment. This process can highlight just how much energy is lost en route, through cooling, for example.

Well-designed datacenters can save customers substantial amounts of energy, reducing costs. Many new datacenters can obtain a PUE of 1.2, which is a massive reduction compared with traditional datacenters. Over time, companies should work to reduce energy costs, save customers money, while also reducing the carbon based emissions. Using state of the art modular box environments, EvoSwitch now utilises adiabatic cooling to provide the highest energy efficiency possible to customers.

Reducing Energy Consumption

Of course, while green energy is important, it is equally important for datacenters to try and conserve power, and reduce consumption.

Datacenters typically need to run 24/7, but with some innovative design, it is possible to introduce small changes that make a big difference. For example, high frequency lighting (30,000Hz) with sensors that automatically switch lights off when nobody is around are a simple way to ensure power is not wasted unnecessarily.

Companies can also reduce consumption by taking advantage of some of the innovations in cooling systems. Many datacenters now use cold aisle corridors, in which racks are isolated from the rest of the data hall in enclosed units to prevent a ‘short circuit’ of hot and cold air , which would result in wasted energy. By isolating the front of the servers with a roof and sliding doors at each end of the corridor, it is possible to create a fully sealed unit which allows the front of the servers to be cooled, and the cold air to be pushed through to the back of the racks to be efficiently exhausted.

The advantage of cold aisle corridors is that cold air cannot escape from the sealed unit, and is not wasted by being released into the warm air of the server room –reducing overall energy efficiency.  When creating cold corridors it is possible to raise the overall ambient temperature of the datacenter to as much as 22-25 degrees Celsius, without affecting the cold corridor, which reduces energy consumption even further.

In the most advanced datacenters, it is also possible to take advantage of free cooling, which uses cold air from outside the datacenter to chill corridors. This works particularly well in countries with cooler climates such as the Netherlands, where ambient temperatures are below 15 degrees Celsius for most of the year.

Free cooling offers a substantial cost saving over traditional cooling and is particularly valuable if companies choose to locate their datacenters in locations that emphasise high quality and energy efficient hosting. Ultimately, these companies will find that centres located in such places provide high performance, extremely efficiently.  The new wave of carbon-neutral datacenters are working hard towards becoming consistently ‘green’ at all levels, reducing power consumption and costs, while increasing efficiency. At EvoSwitch, we implement a range of cutting-edge, green technologies that allow us to be as energy-efficient as possible, and to share the financial and environmental benefits of these investments with our customers. In the current financial and political climate, we believe only those datacenters taking such steps will continue to provide the highest value for customers.

                          

Together with TNO and many other partners, we have started working on a project which can be found when Googling the term Flexiquest. So, what’s it all about? Flexiquest examines the effects of managing demand for all parties in the energy value chain: producers, trading partners, (regional) grid administrators as well as the end users. Flexiquest is working toward business models that will enable all the parties in the chain to determine what more sustainable energy will mean for them specifically. “To what extent can we make the demand for energy more flexible?”, “What does more sustainable energy mean for the regional electricity transmission system operators in terms of grid transmission and the costs involved?”, and “What does more sustainable energy mean for the tariff that end users pay?” All these questions play an important role in this regard.

Eric Boonstra explains:  “It’s something really unique that we are trying to establish here. For the past several years we were already pushing boundaries when it came to PUE, however, this takes it to another level. Datacenters traditionally aimed at lowering the decimal number of the PUE value. We are now looking to see if it’s possible to harness the whole PUE number. With a PUE of 1.2 for our latest datahall we can still gain wins when it comes to the 0.2, but it’s within our ambitions to take a stab at the 1. Can you imagine what that will do to our client’s electricity bill?”

Jan Wiersma continued: “The topic of energy is of great importance when it comes to developing and maintaining a datacenter. Your clients trust you with their business, since part of their success relies on your ability to supply power 100% of the time, at a competitive rate. Mastering the energy grid will be an efficiency win both for ourselves, as well as for the client. From a technical point of view you want to take a look at securing the whole process, not just the PUE. By combining our technical knowledge, together with facility managers and TNO, we can make a very good business case. “

Larger scale deployment of sustainable energy is consistent with EU targets for sustainable growth. In the Netherlands, renewable energy accounted for 4% of total national energy usage in 2010. The EU target for renewable energy for the Netherlands is 14% in 2020.

                          

Many datacenters in the region suffered in the same storm, however we were happy to report that not a single one of our racks in the datacenter was affected. However, this good outcome wasn’t down to luck. Though unlikely (or so we thought!), this eventuality was something that the experts at EvoSwitch were fully prepared for. When building our datacenter, we were sure to follow a number of technical standards and guidelines. These were designed to ensure that should something like a lightning strike occur, we would have everything in place to minimize its effect on the running of the datacenter and – most importantly – our storage of customers’ data.

As such, the sorts of protection which we are equipped with include aluminum plating across the roof of the datacenter, correct grounding and an appropriate class of lightning arrestor. We also have a back-up power supply which – if the worst had happened and the power to the datacenter had failed – would have lasted for 48 hours. Together, these provisions allowed us to withstand the lightning strike back in August.

As for what might have happened if they had not been in place – well, we can only speculate. It’s fair to say though, that the consequences could have been serious. Although unpleasant, these sorts of occurrences serve to emphasize the need for planning and preparation. We all know how unpredictable weather can be, so it’s our job to be one step ahead!

In addition to protection against extreme weather conditions, every precaution is taken to ensure that the building is kept safe and secure in other ways. Our security services include CCTV cameras both inside and outside the datacenter, security guards on-site 24-7 and electric fencing around the full perimeter.

These forms of security monitor and restrict access to the site and to our IT housing solutions, to guarantee complete protection for the storage of data.

So as you can see, good security systems extend to all potential threats. From the prevention of intruders to less frequent risks such as extreme weather including rain, fire and storms, all necessary steps must be taken in risk planning and management.

If you have any questions, do let us know – we’re always happy to offer you our advice and recommendations, or simply to provide you with further information. Or why not leave us a comment in the box below? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

                          

Task description: Reporting to the Corporate Communications Manager, you will be responsible for co-ordinating and managing the delivery of all design delivery to ensure business and design objectives are met.

- Creation of consistent brands

- Evolution of existing websites and creation of new ones

- Lead in conceptual campaigns to further brands (online and offline)

- Establish design guidelines and house styles for each brand

- Taking the brands to the next level through creative design

Requirements:

- Driven to achieve objectives
- An independent, open, enthusiastic and inspiring personality
- An impressive portfolio with high profile corporate brands
- Extraordinary vision and outstanding design talent
- Previous creative concept/brand strategy experience
- Planning skills
- Excellent project management experience
- Able to work under pressure
- Team player
- Excellent track record of delivery in a similar business, ideally in an IT company
- Excellent track record of brand development
- Solid experience working with Content Management Systems (CMS), HTML, CSS, action script (AS2&AS3) and the Adobe Creative Suite CS5 (Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Indesign) is essential, HTML5 is a plus
- Fluent in Dutch and English

How to apply:

For more information on this vacancy, phone Vyvyan Gonzales on number +31 (0)6 46381242 or send an e-mail to jobs@ocom.com. Inquiries from acquisition agencies with regard to this vacancy are not appreciated.

                          

Allow us to elaborate on that. Nowadays IT is obviously very important to every company. Where would a company (or any individual in the western world, for that matter) be without email or Google? The thing is: people don’t care about IT as long as it does the job it is supposed to do, which is to offer permanent functionality.

What if it doesn’t? In that case, companies would lose money. They would need to make calls to help desks, providers and hosters, hire IT staff or tweak their infrastructures themselves. Needless to say, this is time and money that they cannot afford to invest in their core business. So what do we see? We see a boom of companies that put one and one together – IT and permanent functionality – and that offer their expertise to companies that need IT ‘as a commodity’.

The result of this is that a lot of business functionality is offered as a service. These services include Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and so on. On top of this you also have your hosting and datacenter specialists, who are able to provide their ‘as-a-service-providers’ as well as their clients with the best possible service. This is not only because of the economy of scale, but also because of their expertise.

Hosting providers and the datacenters like EvoSwitch behind them typically have specialists on every subject – if they know what they are doing! In that case their clients can be sure that by outsourcing their IT they can profit from optimal uptime, maximum security and up-to-date expertise from certified staff. They can be sure that they have enough space for their servers (colocation), always have the most recent and extensive software packages (suites, daily patches and updates), have access to the cloud (redundant setup, scalability) and work energy-efficiently (low PUE, green computing).

As a result of all of this, outsourcing is booming. This is because it assures functionality and saves money; it’s as simple as that. Recently, Gartner stated that by 2013 over 70% of all organizations will no longer own IT-assets. Indeed, IT is increasingly considered to be a means to an end. In our opinion the conclusions are pretty straight forward: unless your core business is IT, you should not own IT.

Why not get in touch with us to find out what EvoSwitch can do to help you outsource your IT? We’d be happy to have a chat about your requirements. Alternatively, leave us a comment below or tweet us at @EvoSwitch, and someone will get back to you shortly.

                          

The modular approach is an extension of the principles applied by datacenter containers. These large 20 or 40 ft ‘1.0 version’ modules come in a variety of forms and are available with or without servers. They aim to satisfy market demand through scalability. This popular, pre-installed option allows for anywhere up to 2,500 servers. Over time the building blocks method has grown into a technique that is today known as modular building. The is an important difference though between a modular datacenter infrastructure and the container format is scale, with modular datacenters expanding the container principal to full facility level.

The modular model’s popularity stems from its cost-saving benefits which, in comparison to costly office space, reduce the upfront investment required to release capital. Resources can, therefore, be managed on a demand basis, meaning that the organization is only using what it requires at that given time. However, there are also other very practical implications. Convenience is always a key consideration for businesses in the decision-making process, as it is usually intrinsically linked to cost. Modular datacenters hit this issue head-on by reducing construction time from years to a matter of months. It enables expansion to be implemented as and when it’s needed, and the new modules can be chosen to meet specific criteria – capacity, efficiency, etc.

This as-and-when expansion ensures that the datacenter is always up to date and running the latest, most innovative technology. Datacenter building facilities last around ten years without replacement, while the technologies inside them are replaced every three years or so. As such, the modular approach means that sections of the datacenter can be chopped and changed within the building with minimal disruption to operations.

On top of all this, the last main benefit to the modular datacenter is quality control. Modular expansion means businesses have greater control over their IT infrastructure, which is scalable and in-line with their individual requirements. This gives housing providers, such as us, much more flexibility, which we can in turn pass on to our customers. Ultimately, it means in this still-struggling economy we can better meet the demands of our cost-conscious customers and still provide the same high quality service as always.

Why not check out our website to find out more about the design of our modular datacenter suites? We’re always keen to hear your thoughts, so if you have any questions or comments – or even if you would like to visit us all here at EvoSwitch – please feel free to get in touch!