Data Center Design -Capex and Opex Elements

Data center is expected to deliver a high speed, high availability and high demand Infrastructure Services to business. A properly designed data center delivers Availability, Reliability, Scalability and off course Accessibility. Data Center availability is calculated as 24 (Hours) by 365 (Days) per year minus any Scheduled Maintenance Downtime.

Typical Capex elements in designing a high speed, availability & demand Data Center generally include....

Non-IT Elements:

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  Physical Layout Elements: Rectangular Space for optimized planning.


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  Physical Security Elements: CCTV, Proximity Cards and Biometric/Retina based access control systems, Water Leakage Detection System, Smoke/Fire Detection System, Water Sprinklers, FM200 Fire Suppression System, CO2 based Fire Extinguishers, Rodent Repellents

IT Equipments Elements

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  Networking Communication Systems


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  SAN (Storage Area Networks)


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  NAS (Network Attached Storage)


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  File/Application/Web Server Farms


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  Database Server Farms


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  Network Security Element (Firewall, NIDS/NIPS, HIDS/HIPS, Anti-Virus, VA etc.)

Typical Opex elements in designing a high speed, availability & demand Data Center include....

• Salary of IT Admin Staff.


• Salary of Non-IT Admin Staff


• Consumable Costs like Backup Tape, Diesel, Electricity Cost


• Maintenance and Repair Costs.

Type of Data Centers

Data Centers are primary categorized into two:

• CDC: Abbreviated for Corporate Data Center. CDC is an institutional data center usally owned, operated and managed by Corporate bodies for their in house IT infrastructure needs. It could be in the shape of small server room or reasonably sized data centers in a corporate world.
• IDC: Abbreviated for Internet Data Center. IDC is generally owned, operated and managed by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Corporates generally host their internet based services in an IDC. IDC usually provides services like Cloudbased Hosting, E-Mail Hosting, Website Hosting, Colocation facilities etc. Cloudbased services are the latest buzz words in the managed hosting services

Data Center - Floor Planning

A data center floor planning is neceesary to achieve following among other benefits...

1. Cooling predictability
2. Power Density Calculation
3. Electrical Efficiency
4. Efficient Space Allocation

A Data Center Floor Plan consists of the Structural layout and the Equipment layout.

Structural Layout: The room layout includes the location of walls, doors, support columns, the height of the raised floor, location of accessramps, lifts etc.

Equipment layout: The equipment layout shows the footprint of IT equipments and the Non-IT (power and cooling) equipments including their footprint. IT equipment is usually measured as rack locations. Rack locations are not affected by no of devices installed within the rack.

Cooling Data Center with Hot and Cold Aisles

Cooling Data Center is one of the most critical requirements of any data center design and management. There are various approaches to cooling which includes perimeter and rack based cooling methodologies. In perimeter cooling an important approach is "Creating Hot and Cold Aisles" to create natual air flow. In this methodology cold air is released from perforated tiles placed in raised floor while hot air retruns from ducts in false ceiling.

The Cold and Hot aisle design is achieved by stacking equipment racks in a row in alternate position such that cold intake and hot discharge from equipments in rack rows face each other. This facilitates zoning of cold air in-take for equipments placed inside the rack and hot air released from equipments inside rack.

Benefits of Hot and Cold Aisle Cooling Methodology.

• The Cold Air in-take of equipment always receives cold air released from perforated tiles used in raised floor.
• The hot Air Discharch side of the equipment face each other resulting efficient processing of hot air inside the data center.

Thus the efficient and optimized cooling is achieved by creating hot and cold aisles.

Raised Flooring-Facts

What is Raised Flooring?

Raised Flooring is a framework of horizontal and vertical bars mounted on the Data Center's true floor, creating an elevated grid. Flat panels are placed in these grids to create a raised floor surface. A typcial raised flooring in a modern data center is about 24" to 30" in height.

A raised floor provides flexibility in electrical and network cabling, and help control cooling inside data center. Alternatie to raised flooring is to lay power & network cabling on the floor while cooling can be delivered through ducts in the false ceiling. There are both pros and cons of having raised flooring and not having it.

Pros and Cons of No-Raised-Flooring in Data Center.

• In ISP/CoLolocations wire fencing can be installed to physically seperate cages that can go floor to ceiling and prohibits people from crawling beneath the raised floor and gain unauthorized access.
• Loss of cooling to one cage closer to the HVAC unit having many open tiles decreasing subfloor pressure is ruled out.
• Inefficient cooling as it can not easily be rerouted to other areas
• Problems associated with exposed power and network cabling

Pros and Cons of Raised-Flooring in Data Center

• Dedicated space allows to channel cooled air through by strategically placing perforated or grated floor tiles.
• Network and Power cabling beneath raised floor is safe and less prone to accidents.
• Provides easy accessibility to network and power cables lying beneath raised floor.
• The drawback is associated with the cost of raised flooring in a small data center admeasuring less than 1000 Sq.Ft.

Data Center Design Consideration

Data centers must be planned carefully to ensure compliance with standards/codes governing the technical, physical, environmental and legal aspects. Design considerations to be taken into account prior to building an effective & efficient Data Center includes but is not limited to following...

• Local Law laid by Municipal Corp/similar governmental body
• Site/location Selection Condiseration
• Space available/required for DC
• Electrical Power factors
• Cooling Considerations
• Floor load & height
• Redundancy Level required by Business
• Future Growth and Expansion

Assigning roles and responsibilities before starting a Data Center project is must to succeessfully rollout the DC commissioning project. Some of the practices that can help in designing a data center could include....

• Clearly define deadlines and instructions
• Chalk out Roles and Responsiblities
• Order Data Center materials in advance
• Plan contingencies for inevitable delays
• Document communications, changes
• Visit datacenter site often during construction