DCI
Building next to a live data centre Building a new facility directly adjacent to an active, mission-critical asset adds a layer of operational complexity where mistake margins drop to zero.
Hatem says:“ You can’ t compromise the operations of an existing live facility, so when you build next to something that is already carrying customer load, every design decision and construction activity gets tested against one question: will this work impact the live operations?
“ A lot of decisions come down to construction sequencing, design and shared site access. Even something as simple as who uses which gate gets planned, so construction never crosses paths with operations. Everything we do is around making sure that there’ s no implication on the live facility.”
Delivering significantly higher capacity on a constrained footprint is challenging.
“ There’ s been a few challenges really,” Hatem explains.“ The main challenge was fitting the required capacity within a constrained footprint. That is why we’ ve gone for a multi-storey design.”
Going vertical solves the footprint bottleneck, but introduces unprecedented logistics for heavy plant equipment.
“ The plant equipment – which usually sits outside the building – has to go inside and get stacked,” Hatem reveals.“ Access and replacement of equipment have to be designed from day one, because you can’ t just wheel a generator out through a roller door if they’ re sitting inside the building on an upper floor.”
14 dcidatacenters. com