Modular Data Centres Are Cheaper To Build

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Over-Provisioning

“Six percent of data centres in Europe are Colt,” said Guy Ruddock, VP Operations at Colt DCS. “We have over 250 sites across Europe so we are a big player. At the same time we found that the industry really wanted this flexibility, and customers are asking us to provide a data centre for them, either on their site or our own site. Now these customers can have additional flexibility, that nobody except us can currently provide.”

“The sectional nature of this data centre approach means that the customer can choose any sensible size up to 500m2, and any sensible tiering, and any sensible power  density,” said Ruddock. “And one of the options is that it can be fully clad so it can be deployed outside, without a building.”

“Previously it was in the CIO’s interest to over-provision when building new data centres. And that cost is absolutely fearsome,” said Ruddock. He then cited an example of a new data centre in London, where they had worked out that it would be cheaper to install each server in a room in the Park Lane Hotel for a year, which would work out cheaper than building the new data centre.

“When someone identified a new site for a data centre, there was significant work to get power to that site, but this product will test that thinking,” said Geoghegan. “A shift is coming in the sense about a conventional two year build, but now it is much quicker. Customers can opt to step it up for power as they grow.”

“Nobody in the data centre industry thought about this before (constructing a dc to match existing needs and then grow it), but the oil industry thought about this problem way back in late 1980s, when it build oil platforms to be scalable,” said Ruddock.

“This option is going to become the normal option for customers that don’t have a lot of money to spend on data centres,” said Ruddock. “When companies were flush with cash, OPEX was not a big issue, but now it is.”

Containers vs Modular

“Our approach differs from the shipping container approach,” said Ruddock. “Containers are a great idea but are for a different problem. They tend to house small servers, stripped down, and it is then run until it breaks, and are used in disasters and war zones. It won’t work in something more traditional.”

Colt claims that it also offers improved power efficiency. In addition to the 1500W and 1625W per square metre standard products already on offer today, Colt is able to increase the power density of its Modular Data Centre to up to 3000W per square metre or reduce it to as low as 750W per square metre, depending on the customer requirements. These new power densities are available across all new modular designs.

And Colt also provides the Tier levels 2, 3, 3+ or 4 throughout the entire range of Modular Data Centres. It is working with the Uptime Institute to have the new designs independently certified.