AST Modular Opens Container Data Centre In Denmark

Modular data centre specialist, AST Modular, last week completed the delivery of a multiple data centre container park in Denmark.

The container-based data centre is designed for the Nordic financial services industry.

It consists of 21 containers spread over two sites, and the new containerised modules will complement the existing brick & mortar data centres. The containers are interconnected to the existing facilities by redundant dark fibre trunks, which according to AST Modular, allows the whole campus to work as one highly resilient virtual data centre of about 9,000 m2 raised floor space.

Green Cooling

AST Modular is claiming both high availability and redundancy, coupled with great levels of energy efficiency. This includes a 350 Watt IT load capacity at 80 percent redundant supply capacity.

AST said that the Container Park achieved a PUE of 1.13 thanks to AST Modular’s Natural Free Cooling patented technology. This recorded PUE rating of 1.13 is apparently the lowest PUE of any of the client’s data centres in the Nordic region.

In December AST revealed it had put a free-air cooling module on top of its data centre container. AST’s Natural FreeCooling systems are also in use at Thor, a facility in Iceland, which plans to be the greenest data centre in the world thanks to its use of all-renewable power. In December it was revealed that the Thor data centre already houses servers for the Opera browser, and is based in a 28,000 square foot shed in Hafnarfjordur close to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital.

Going Mainstream?

“The moment has finally come for containers to go mainstream even within the corporate enterprise environment,” said Henry Daunert, CEO at AST Modular. “AST Modular’s Data Center Park in Denmark is the true evidence of a shift in perspective by the financial industry towards containers.”

“We believe that the modular approach is affirming itself as the only sustainable data centre model and once again we are pleased to be at the forefront of such a process,” he said.

Modular data centres build utilising shipping containers are growing in popularity, but previously they have been seen as a less-efficient option than a purpose-built facility. And up until now the financial sector is thought to have had something of a sceptical attitude towards containers.

In May this year service provider Colt said that the cost of data centre construction could be reduced using its modular data centre design approach. Indeed, the UK is already seeing the uptake of the container based approach.

Gartner has previously said that the data centre of the future will be smaller than traditional structures. This is because most older data centres are woefully under-utilised from a space perspective.