Edenaire delivers cooling efficiencies for Jersey Telecom’s data centre hosting and co-lo sites
Edenaire has been supplying close control solutions to Jersey Telecom for over 20 years. Now, as the company continues its upgrade to Next Generation Network (NGN) systems and develops its off-shore data centre, Edenaire is helping Jersey manage its cooling requirements and address demands for greater energy efficiency and a reduction in its carbon footprint.
As one of the world’s largest offshore finance centres Jersey is heavily reliant on efficient, fast, cost effective and manpower saving telecommunications. Its fully digital exchange network is upgraded on a regular basis by Jersey Telecom to ensure the island is not left behind in terms of standards and new services.
Its digital connections rely on an extensive fibre optic network, over which connections to the System X exchanges are made on sophisticated Local Area Network (LAN) connections. The use of the very latest Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) systems provides the backbone for the inter-exchange connections and the submarine cables which link Jersey with the outside world.
Jersey Telecom also offers secure co-location facilities alongside environmentally controlled state-of-the-art data centres at its compact central site in St Helier, providing 24/7 business critical applications and business continuity for major corporates and some of the UK’s leading brands.
Despite the advances in technology, huge amounts of heat are generated. With the demand for data management, and the advent of blade server technology, racking systems present their own heat issues and the over-riding challenge for today’s data centres is how to control and reduce heat loads and power consumption.
“Looking after corporate data as well as the telecoms infrastructure for the island is a critical resource and we need to have a dependable and robust cooling management strategy in place,” comments Peter Bisson, Head of Facilities, Jersey Telecom.
The temperature in the data centre is maintained at 23° using specialist units based on the BTX, CTXe, fresh air units and IPAC-30 floor standing close control units.
The CTXe range was specifically designed as a packaged unit for telecomms environments offering cooling duties from 4kW up to 20kW in three cabinet sizes. By using high efficiency scroll compressors, low noise sickle blade condenser fans and the benefit of up to 80% fresh air free cooling the CTXe also offers significant energy savings.
The IPAC is designed to operate at room temperatures from 18°C -30°C as standard and offers a flexible range of duties from 15kW to 80kW, open architecture protocol and a choice of chilled water or DX cooling. Units can also be customised to suite more exacting requirements.
In the co-location room a further three IPACs are used and three e-BTX units with room for a fourth unit to enable expansion. Two IPAC units are also used in the UPS room and six BTX-15 along side two CTX-15 in the System X room. In the basement there are four further IPACs and two more in the switching room. Space is at a premium on the site and there is no spare capacity for additional condensing units on the roof. There are plans to move System X out once the NGN is fully on stream.
Where possible Jersey relies on the energy saving benefits of fresh air cooling particularly as the company’s energy bill is in excess of £1million per annum. This is more practicable in the cooler months, typically November to April whereas from June through to October it relies on full DX cooling. Jersey Telecom continually monitors its energy consumption and is actively looking at ways to decrease depends and reduce requirements.
Jersey is currently looking to expand and introduce more servers and racking systems which will require more specific cooling, although it is not planning to adopt the current vogue for hot and cold aisles because of space restraints and its cooling
The location of the building which is listed places severe restrictions on kit that is specified. The roof space is limited and any units must have a low profile, external wall space is also scarce and imposes further restrictions on the type and size of equipment specified. Server based systems themselves give rise to ‘hot spots’ so a more challenging cooling solution will be required. “As new technologies emerge” says Peter Bisson. “Manufacturers are developing systems that consume less power and generate less heat.”
In the meantime Jersey will continue to maximise its facilities and is optimistic that the next generation of air handlers already under development by Edenaire will have smaller footprints and that these can be combined with a mix of rear door heat exchangers and CDU’s to meet its exacting cooling requirements. At the same time Jersey envisages less diversity of kit which will make it easier to quantify where energy savings can be realised.