Internet Solutions has launched its11^th African data centre, Randview, which boasts an innovative approach to cooling.

 

The company asserts that this will enable it to “slash client power costs, increase data centre productivity, and improve disaster resilience.”

Randview, which is the company’s fourth data centre in Gauteng, has been designed to operate without conventional air conditioning for all but the hottest time of the year.
 
“Cooling is the largest item on a data centre bill, so reducing the need for compressor based air conditioning has a significant impact on a client’s data centre costs,” explained Barry Hatfield, Internet Solutions business development manager for cloud solutions.

“It also gives the client a buffer against electricity price increases. A 10% increase on a monthly power bill for a server rack of, say, R1500 is very different from 10% of R3000,” he continued.

Kyoto Cooling

The technology responsible for Randview’s cooling consists of three Kyoto Cooling Cells, mechanical wheels made of conductive aluminium and six metres in diameter.

The company explained that half of the wheel is exposed to outside air, and the other half to the data centre air. The cooler exterior air temperature is transferred into the building as the wheel turns. Because the inside half of the wheel is sealed from the outside, dust and other contaminants in the external atmosphere are not transferred to the interior of the data centre.

Heat is extracted from the data centre interior and the wheel-cooled air is delivered to the racks.

Hatfield elaborated that Kyoto Cooling has been tested and proven in many different applications in Europe and, most publicly, in Sydney Airport in Australia. This, he explained, meant that there was no operational risk in using the technology in a data centre.

“More to the point, because we can use volume instead of temperature differential to cool the servers and we don’t lose efficiency through a mixture of hot and cool air over the servers, very little of the electricity we bring in to the building is being lost. Most of what we draw from Eskom is going towards powering the servers,” he added.

Innovation, throughout

However, its different approach to cooling is not the only innovation that Randview has on offer. The company explained that the data centre is ‘carrier agnostic’, which enables client organisations to use their incumbent connectivity providers to access the data centre.

Additionally, Randview’s cabling runs above the racks, preventing damage to the cables and facilitating maintenance and installation. This has also enabled the use of solid concrete floors, which don’t need reinforcing to be able to carry high density, heavy computing devices.
 
“Randview is not just about saving electricity - it’s also about being able to do more with the electricity that is available as well as with the floor and building space. Randview is not simply more energy efficient, it’s more productive overall,” stressed Hatfield.

To the point
 
He further asserted that the cost savings generated by Randview’s innovative design “will make it more affordable for clients to plan for and execute on disaster resilience”.

 

Hatfield explained that the focus has shifted from an exclusive emphasis on disaster recovery to high availability and preventing a disaster from happening.

“Much of that is achieved through redundancy and back up facilities, all of which come with a price tag. If, however, your primary data centre is one of our existing data-centres with a DR site in  Randview, the large amount of connectivity between our data centres and Randview allows us to offer a compelling value proposition,” he concluded.