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Monday, May 20th, 2013
| Time | Event |
| 11:30a | Data Center Jobs: Delta Construction Partners At the Data Center Jobs Board, we have a new job listing from Delta Construction Partners, which is seeking an Electrical – Project Manager (Data Centers) in Florida. The Electrical – Project Manager (Data Centers) is responsible for managing all activities associated with materials, budgeting, labor and production for assigned data center project(s), leading all business aspects of concurrent projects, including mission critical facilities, and ensuring financial targets are met while maintaining established quality standards, planning and scheduling resources to meet project milestones, assuming a key role in maintaining customer relationships to ensure customer satisfaction and quality of service, and managing project-related correspondence and documents. To view full details and apply, see job listing details. Are you hiring for your data center? You can list your company’s job openings on the Data Center Jobs Board, and also track new openings via our jobs RSS feed. |
| 12:00p | Cloak & Dagger: Iowa’s Secret Courtship of Facebook  An artist’s conception of the future Facebook data center in Altoona, Iowa (Image: Facebook) What goes on behind the scenes in winning a “codename” data center project? It’s a secretive process in which negotiations begin on a first-name only basis, and continue through anonymized email accounts and subsidiaries with mysterious names, followed by non-disclosure agreements. After many twists and turns, delays and haggling over incentives, the mystery company is finally revealed. The Des Moines Register takes readers inside this previously secret site selection process in “How Iowa Landed Facebook,” which provides details of the state of Iowa’s courtship of “Project Catapult,” which culminated in a new Facebook data center project in Altoona, Iowa. The story is based on an examination of 330 emails between state officials and representatives, which were obtained through the state’s open records law. When dealing with state and local officials in Iowa, members of the Facebook corporate team all used Gmail accounts to hide the company’s identity. Facebook’s site selection expert used a fake last name (“Siculus”, which was also the name of the legal subsidiary created for the project). Even though Facebook reps pressed Iowa officials to line up permits and incentives to meet their “aggressive timeline,” there were several extensive delays. “There were times the project just went dark,” Iowa economic development official Debi Durham told the Register, speculating that the company’s turbulent IPO may have been a factor in the delays. At one point in November 2012, a Facebook rep told Durham last fall that the project was “stuck in corporate approval hell.” The Register story also highlights the fierce competition between Iowa and Nebraska, where the company was known as “Project Edge.” It adds up to a revealing look inside the process. If you’re in site selection or economic development, it’s must-read material. Read the full story at the Des Moines Register. |
| 12:54p | NSA Utah Data Center Facing Unexpected Energy Taxes  An artist’s illustration of the plans for the NSA data center at Camp Williams in Utah. The National Security Agency (NSA) finds itself facing millions of dollars in taxes on the electricity usage in its Utah data center as a result of a new law passed by state legislators, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. The new law, known as HB325, was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert on April 1. It allows the Utah Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), which was set up to put select military properties on the public tax rolls, to collect a tax of up to 6 percent on Rocky Mountain Power electricity used by the Utah Data Center. The NSA has said it will spend up to $1.5 billion on the Utah data center, which is approaching completion of its first phase after nearly four years of construction. The project will have a power capacity of 65 megawatts, making power a big component of its operations. “Long term stability in the utility rates was a major factor in Utah being selected as our site for our $1.5 billion construction at Camp Williams,” wrote Harvey Davis, NSA director of installations and logistics, in an April 26 email obtained by the Tribune. “HB325 runs counter to what we expected.” Lot of Computing HorsepowerThe 1 million square-foot Camp Williams facility in Bluffdale, Utah will house a 100,000 square foot data center, while the remaining 900,000 SF will be used for technical support and administrative space. Wired has estimated the Utah Data Center would consume $40 million of electricity a year, which translates into about $2.4 million annually in additional taxes under HB325. The Utah project has raised concerns in some quarters about domestic surveillance and the types of data that will be gathered and stored at the Utah facility. Officials in Utah have publicly touted the project as a boost to the local economy, creating 10,000 construction jobs. One thing is clear: The NSA is bringing a lot of computing horsepower to bear on its mission in Utah. The facility will include both air-cooled and liquid-cooled IT gear, according to construction specs. The agency is also reported to be deploying server-side Flash memory to speed their data collection, according to Sterne Agee analyst Alex Kurtz. “We have learned through multiple sources that the National Security Agency will deploy Server Side Flash in their reported $2 billion data center in Utah (code name Bumblehive) as part of their data ingest architecture,” Kurtz wrote in an April 24 research note, in which he speculated that Flash specialist Fusion-io could eventually benefit from the NSA requirement. |
| 2:05p | Quincy: Data Centers Bloom Where Beans Once Grew  Some of the filtration tanks inside Microsoft’s water treatment plant at its data center in Quincy, Washington. The company will lease the facility to the city for$10 a year as part of a partnership to develop a more sustainable water supply in Quincy. QUINCY, Wash. – Beans once grew on the land where Microsoft’s data centers now stand. Quincy was a small farming community that has grown into a town. As you arrive in Quincy, you can see the changes brought by the arrival of a cluster of huge Internet data centers. Driving through town, something stands out: the fire station. Instead of a one-engine company, the fire station for the town looks state of the art, rivaling the best fire stations in the biggest cities. It’s one thing Microsoft and other providers have helped bring to the community through its investment in Quincy and its community. Quincy’s motto is “Where Agriculture Meets Technology.” There are 200,000 acres of farmland surrounding Quincy, which is known for its rich soil and food processing plants. It’s also almost a perfect location for data centers. The Columbia River provides low cost power . The land was dirt cheap when Microsoft and Yahoo first purchased property here. A strange thing happened in this small community 20 years ago: the mayor decided to invest heavily in dark fiber. The citizens, by all accounts, thought this was crazy. The Economic Benefits of a Data Center ClusterNot any more. The combination of cheap power, cheap land and dark fiber set up the perfect storm. Now, thanks to Microsoft and others like Yahoo locating here, property values are rising, new houses and stores are everywhere. There is always new construction in town, which has grown from 5,400 residents in 2007 to more than 6,200 today. While just 35 to 50 people work on the Microsoft Quincy campus, the arrival of data centers has meant much more than just jobs. The town has benefited in a variety of ways, from a surge in construction to being able to get 100mbs internet connections for 20 bucks a month. After receiving $700,000 in sales taxes in 2005, Quincy’s tax revenue grew to $1.5 million in 2006 and nearly tripled to $4.3 million in 2007 due to data center construction by Microsoft and Yahoo. Those two Internet giants were followed by new data center projects from Intuit, Sabey Corp., Dell and Vantage Data Centers. On the Technology FrontierIn the process, Quincy has become home to two of the world’s most advanced data centers. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have deployed cutting edge designs featuring pre-fabricated components and using fresh air for cooling, placing them among the most efficient facilities in the industry. The phased buildouts at Microsoft and Yahoo reflect the maturation of the data center industry. The first phase of Microsoft’s Quincy facility (known as Columbia 1 and 2) is a typical colocation facility. It has 36-inch raised floors, and the roofs were painted white because it meant less heat and better energy efficiency. A UPS room has 20 minutes of capacity for the switchover to generators. Generators are always ready – Microsoft has patents in how it pre-heats them. Outside, diesel fuel is contained in glass lined containers, with enough onsite to operate for days and all the agreements in place for more. The generators are tested every month. With its latest phase, Microsoft has shifted to lightweight enclosures filled with servers, known as ITPACs, housed on concrete slabs. They are self-contained data centers, assembled in days, housed on a concrete slabs and attached to a power “spine” supplying connections to the grid and the Internet. Down the street, Yahoo has seen a similar transformation. Its first phase, built in 2007, features a relatively traditional concrete shell data center. Next to the building sit several new “computing coops,“ prefabricated metal structures measuring about 120 feet long by 60 feet wide. Each of the coops has louvers built into the side to allow cool air to enter the computing area. Water Plant: A Model of Infrastructure SharingMicrosoft has also built a water processing plant for cooling, which showcases the relationship between the town and its data centers. In a move that will save millions of gallons of potable water for the local community, Microsoft and Quincy have teamed to retool the city’s water treatment infrastructure. The multi-million dollar water treatment plant built by Microsoft to support its data center will be leased to the city for just $10 a year. The plant will be retrofitted and expanded to support the water reuse initiative, which will allow other nearby businesses and data centers to benefit. The relationship between the town and its data center has not been without controversy. A tiff between Microsoft and the local utility over power usage quotas made the New York Times in 2012. The growing number of diesel generators to provide emergency power for the data centers generated debate in 2010 when Microsoft applied to add more generators for the second phase of its campus. The Washington State Ecology department conducted an evaluation of the health risks from diesel engine exhaust particulates, and found that the Microsoft expansion, viewed in isolation, was not likely to impact public health. An independent board later supported that ruling. In an era when it’s not always easy to quantify the economic bottom line of data center development, Quincy has emerged as the most prominent example of the two rationales for incentives: that landing one major data enters will attract others and form a “cluster,” and that the collective impact of the cluster will have an economic benefit for the community. |
| 2:31p | Understanding Data Center Commissioning and Its Benefits Michael Donato, QCxP, LEED AP BD+C, is on the team at Emerson Network Power, Electrical Reliability Services.  MICHAEL DONATOEmerson Network Power Commissioning has existed as a discipline of the building construction industry for nearly three decades, yet it is continually evolving. Despite widely available standards, there is still considerable difference of opinion as to the definition of commissioning and the processes involved. As a result, commissioning is generally misunderstood and some of the most valuable commissioning processes are underutilized. In the data center world, many owners don’t seem to have a clear picture of the purpose and value of this important quality assurance program. Commissioning is most often used to ensure a new data center process, system or expansion meets the owner’s needs. Specifically, the American Society of Heating, Because commissioning activities always tie back to meeting the owners’ needs, the owner is the best person to oversee the commissioning process. However, rarely does the owner have the time or expertise to fill this role, particularly in the middle of a large project. This is why owners typically hire a Commissioning Authority (CxA), such as Electrical Reliability Services (ERS), to provide building commissioning services, and oversee and execute the entire commissioning process. Unlike a Commissioning Agent, who has legal authority to make decisions on behalf of the owner, the CxA does not have any decision-making power on the project. However, a quality CxA will offer the expertise, guidance, and direction the owner needs to make informed commissioning decisions. Another way to think of the CxA is as a quality assurance professional that keeps the project focused on the goals of the owner, from start to finish, in order to realize the following benefits. Less Unplanned Downtime and Fewer RepairsPreventing or greatly reducing the possibility of unplanned downtime, which can be devastating to a business, is perhaps the greatest value commissioning provides for data center facilities. Commissioning activities ensure that mission-critical equipment is properly installed and that systems are fully integrated. The process checks for redundancy and single points of failure. It includes comprehensive system testing to verify availability in all operating modes. These activities help identify potential system-related problems so they can be resolved before leading to major equipment damage or a disruption of service. Commissioning can also ensure a well-trained and well-equipped operations and maintenance (O&M) staff that is less likely to make mistakes that lead to system failure. Reduced Life Cycle CostsDone properly, commissioning improves system performance throughout the life cycle of a data center. Better system performance not only optimizes data center performance, it also decreases operation and maintenance costs and cuts down on energy consumption for smaller utility bills. Fewer Change Orders and DelaysUnder the oversight of the CxA, projects experience fewer change orders, delays, and rework, avoiding the considerable costs of late occupancy, liquidated damages, extended equipment rentals, and other costs associated with delays. Cost-Effective Problem ResolutionThe commissioning process helps identify system-related problems early in the project when it is most economical to correct the issues. For example, design problems can be identified during design reviews as opposed to late in the construction process when it is much more time consuming and costly to correct them. Installation issues are pinpointed before system startup, and O&M process problems are noted before a component fails. Full System IntegrationFor maximum data center availability, all critical systems – power, cooling and IT infrastructure – must function together as a fully integrated system. Historical approaches to testing and startup verified only that each individual system components functioned independently. Today, a CxA employs more sophisticated processes and tests to verify that components work together as an integrated system. Informed WorkforceOne of the outcomes of the commissioning process is a robust knowledge base about the new system or process, which can be translated into quality training activities, training materials, and O&M resources. Involving the CxA in the training process and Systems Manual preparation ensures that the O&M staff is well prepared and well equipped to operate and maintain the newly commissioned system. In addition, both veteran staff and new hires will have quality references for future training, refreshers, or troubleshooting. Benchmarking DataCommissioning creates extensive documentation for benchmarking system changes and trends. The data can be used to identify future problems with the system or process, maintain optimal operations, and evaluate future maintenance decisions. Improved EfficiencyIf efficiency features have been designed and built into the new system, commissioning activities can verify that the features function as intended. Commissioning can also ensure that the O&M staff has the training and operating resources it needs to fully leverage the design efficiencies, thus realizing the resulting energy cost savings. Enhanced Safety and ComplianceThe commissioning process produces a safer data center and reduces owner liability by uncovering safety problems throughout the design, construction, and occupancy phases of a project. Commissioners can ensure that owners and O&M staff receive proper education on safe operating and maintenance procedures pertaining to electrical and mechanical equipment. LEED CertificationCommissioning is a requirement for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED certification. Projects attempting the certification must complete fundamental commissioning activities and can complete enhanced commissioning activities for optional credit. LEED projects must involve the CxA mid-way through the design phase or earlier. Involving your CxA will help ensure your project is commissioned per LEED requirements. Return on InvestmentThe benefits of commissioning often create a return on investment that far exceeds the cost of the commissioning project itself. In all recent ERS projects, cost/benefit analyses of key issues discovered and corrected during the commissioning process revealed value for the owner well beyond the cost of commissioning. These analyses took into account only material and labor costs and did not factor in the cost of data center downtime that likely would have occurred had the identified issues not been resolved. Despite the differences of opinion in the data center industry as to what the commissioning process should entail, commissioning is verifiably a critical step in the design and build of a new facility, system or addition. Ultimately, commissioning leads to greater availability, safety, and efficiency while reducing project and operating costs throughout the life cycle of the data center. Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library. |
| 3:11p | Going Off The Grid: Delaware Data Center Will Generate its Own Power There’s a major project brewing in Delaware, with a group called The Data Centers LLC (TDC) planning a sizeable data center near Newark. TDC says it is planning to invest more than $1 billion in the project, with construction alone for the first two phases expected to be around $400 million. The group wants to construct approximately 900,000 square feet of space. The massive project will also feature a large on-site energy component. The facility will draw no electricity from the grid; instead, the plan is to sell power back to the grid. This means added redundancy will be built into the project. The plant consists of a proprietary configuration of natural gas turbines, steam turbines and gas engines, with two independent natural gas supply lines on site to provide the reliability to deliver uninterrupted, fault tolerant power to the data center. Operating as a Grid-Free Island“The patent-pending design combines best-in-class data center energy efficiencies with the efficiencies of on-site cogeneration and tri-generation plants that can operate as an island without relying on the electrical grid as a backup,” writes Bruce Myatt, CTO of The Data Centers, in a summary of the project. “That means that critical power generation with gas turbines, steam turbines, and adsorption chillers back up one another to power and cool the data center while excess power can be supplied to the grid to support demand response requirements. The facility will secure long-term gas contracts to keep operating costs low and competitive.” TDC has signed a lease with the University of Delaware to occupy a site on the STAR Campus and has lined up over half of the construction funding with investment bankers. The STAR campus is a 272-acre property purchased by the University of Delaware from Chrysler during is bankruptcy back in 2009. TDC will lease 43 acres, and will be the second tenant there, next door to Bloom Energy, which makes solid-oxide fuel cells. Three tenants have already agreed to occupy space at the TDC facility when the site is operational in late 2014, including the University of Delaware. Opportunities exist for additional tenants to reserve space in the first phase of the facility as well. Project Boosted by Infrastructure GrantAccording to TDC CEO Gene Kern, the site will employ approximately 370 full time employees (FTE) and is expected to attract “over 90 other workers from our tenants, vendors, consultants, and our tenants’ tenants.” The company has begun discussing its plans in recent weeks. Kern is a veteran IT infrastructure consultant and cofounder of WAKE Technology Services. The TDC team also include President and COO Robert Krizman, previously a senior VP at Jones Lang LaSalle, and Myatt, who is familiar to many in the industry as a co-founder of the Critical Facilities Round Table. There’s a lot to like about Delaware, according to TDC. State officials have approved a $7.5 million infrastructure grant, with the usual caveats, including meeting certain conditions and documentation that state aid will be spent on infrastructure. State funds will help pay for bringing natural gas and water service to the site, with TDC planning to run two new, dedicated gas lines through Eastern Shore Natural Gas. Part of the $7.5 million grant will go towards building a new electrical substation near the building, which the city will own. There’s a symbiotic relationship forming here, where TDC will bring jobs, strengthen the power infrastructure. making service more reliable in the southern part of Newark, and possibly lead to lower power costs for local residents. TDC will also lay down fiber, in addition to its secure lines, to help the university attract future tenants. Then there’s the taxes – the size of the project means that TDC will pay a combined $20 million in property taxes to the city, New Castle County, and the Christina School District With its high reliability design and managed services capabilities, TDC says the data center has the potential to be an ideal location for high-performance computing and cloud computing operations. |
| 6:42p | Uptime Will Certify 20 Facilities for Digital Realty Trust The Uptime Institute has a history of being focused on the enterprise data center, but service providers have begun embracing Uptime and getting their facilities certified with the group’s Tier system. Today Uptime scored a major win on this front, as Digital Realty Trust announced it will have 20 of its facilities certified by Uptime. Why is this a big deal and a big win for Uptime? Four years ago, Digital Realty might have been considered a critic of Uptime, with one of its executives publicly debating the merits of the Tier system as an industry benchmark. That’s clearly changed, as the multi-tenant universe has warmed to the value of tier certification. Digital Realty says that five of its projects have achieved Tier III certification, including two projects in Sydney and two in Melbourne, and one data center in Trumbull, Connecticut. “As a global developer, operator and long-term owner of enterprise-quality data centers, we have long since designed our Turn-Key Flex solution to meet rigorous engineering and reliability standards,” said Jim Smith, chief technology officer for Digital Realty. “Working with Uptime Institute to obtain Tier III certifications for these new projects further demonstrates our commitment to meeting these high standards on behalf of our customers.” Tier Certification Making More Sense for ProvidersWith enterprise users more frequently choosing OpEx-friendly colocation deals over in-house data centers, a multi-tenant facility with a tier certification gives provides these enterprises some peace of mind. It tells enterprises that their provider meets rigorous uptime requirements. For multi-tenant data center providers, tier certification tells them that their facilities have an effective life beyond the current IT requirements, meaning it’s more than just an attractive pitch to potential customers. The Uptime Institute is a knowledgebase of information culled over the years from numerous data center operators, so it’s a chance to leverage that collective knowledge. In addition to Digital Realty Trust, several service providers have jumped on certification including ATAC, IO, ViaWest, Compass Datacenters, and CyrusOne. Uptime Institute created the standard Tier Classification System to evaluate data center infrastructure in terms of a business’ requirements for system availability. The Tier Classification System provides the data center industry with a consistent method to compare typically unique, customized facilities based on expected site infrastructure performance, or uptime. Furthermore, Tiers enable companies to align their data center infrastructure investment with business goals specific to growth and technology strategies. |
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