Data Center Evolvement: More Capacity, Less Cost, Power Consumption
HP is putting the finishing touches on a 14-month expansion project that doubles the size of its Service Management Center (SMC) in Tulsa, Okla., to 179,000 square feet, including 80,000 square feet of high density raised floor space.
Working closely together, the HP Project Team and HP Critical Facilities Services have constructed and commissioned a high density, highly resilient and highly efficient data center designed to deliver 5 9's of reliability with operational power usage effectiveness (PUE) of “1.4.” HP Critical Facilities Services – EYP MCF is widely recognized as an industry leading innovator in data center design and led the Tulsa project engineering and site commissioning.
HP acquired the Tulsa property in 2001 as part of a large outsourcing contract with Sabre Holdings Group. The company opened the SMC in 2003, using a modular design to accommodate expansion to support future growth. Today, more than 50 commercial and government clients in the Americas and worldwide are served from Tulsa.
HP products such as Opsware and blade servers are used extensively in Tulsa and throughout HP's global network of SMCs and regional delivery centers. Legacy HP Outsourcing Services customers will have access to the new capacity in Tulsa.
“Designing, building and operating premier data centers to support the most complex IT systems in the world is what the HP team does better than anyone,” said Keith Kasten, vice president and general manager, Service Delivery. “Completion of this project on budget and ahead of schedule while maintaining service levels is another proof point.”
HP is a global leader in Data Center and Workplace Services. From Tulsa, the company provides services in areas such as midrange, mainframe, networking, workplace and service desk. With its pre-expansion capacity, Tulsa could:
- Operate/support more than 4,000 operations servers
- Manage 30,500 routers and switches to support users in 144,600 locations worldwide
- Manage 2,000+ servers in distributed, non-data center locations
- Support 100,000+ devices for users in 400 global locations
- Respond to 75,000 service desk calls monthly
- Process 623 million transactions per day in mainframe systems management
With the expansion, Tulsa will have the capacity to support:
- More than 12,000 servers, including 7,100+ HP Blade Servers
- 3,520 terabytes of storage
- 28,440 network ports
“Tulsa has an outstanding track record of providing superior service to our clients,” said Tom Egan, senior vice president, Americas Delivery. “We're excited to have this additional capacity available to serve the needs of our business.”
Premier Eco-Friendly Data Centers
As chronicled by several global market research firms, the IT services industry is confronted by issues related to energy consumption, floor space and/or costs. HP is proactively addressing these challenges – most notably with the Tulsa expansion and the Wynyard facility under construction in northeast England.
Tulsa Data Center Eco-Facts
- Engineered to best-in-class power usage effectiveness
- Engineered to accommodate hot-air containment, resulting in mechanical system efficiency of more than 30 percent and rack densities of more than 20 kilowatts
- Roofed with a high reflective, high-efficiency roofing system
- Engineered three-dimensionally to streamline piping routes, improving system efficiency by 20 percent and reducing construction waste by 10 percent
- Includes a 25-acre protected wetlands habitat
- During construction, 143,877 metric tons of dirt were excavated and reused onsite, saving 205 tons of carbon emissions by earth-moving equipment
- 558 tons (80 percent) of construction waste recycled
“When fully operational, these two undoubtedly will be the premier facilities in our global data center inventory,” said Wes Mitchell, director of Data Center Operations in Tulsa.
Service quality, operating efficiency and environmental sustainability are among the fundamental design principles incorporated into two milestone data center projects. HP is among the corporations named to the Uptime Institute's 2009 Global Green 100 list.
Mickey Weiss, who led the design efforts for the Tulsa expansion, said that priorities have evolved throughout his nearly 30 years in data center construction. “Especially in those early years, the philosophy was that growth opportunities would not be missed because of any potential capacity constraints, and the potential cost of downtime outweighed the potential cost benefits of operating more efficiently,” said Weiss, who's worked on about 45 data center projects worldwide.
“Early on, availability was first and foremost – availability of capacity to deliver the service and availability of mission-critical systems. Efficiency was rarely talked about. That earlier approach has broadened significantly due to rising real estate and construction expenses increased energy costs and environmental concerns.”
Zero outages remain a never-ending quest and is the cornerstone of HP's Service Excellence Program. Since 2006, HP's U.S. Central Delivery Hub, which includes Tulsa, has reduced Severity 1 and 2 incidents by 84 percent and total outage time for clients by 94 percent.
“To be the global leader, we simply have to be the best in service quality and also in environmental sustainability,” Egan said. “In the world we operate in today, the two have become intertwined.”
HP is a founding board member of Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a consortium of industry leaders shaping the direction and driving the adoption of energy-efficient computing platforms. HP is also a member of The Green Grid, a global consortium dedicated to developing and promoting energy efficiency for data centers and information service delivery.
The Tulsa facility, located about 250 miles northeast of HP's Plano, Texas, headquarters, has a variable temperature range, which can affect the building's cooling system. While the yearly average is 61 degrees (F), Tulsa's temperatures can fluctuate dramatically – from occurrences of well-below freezing temperatures in the winter months to 100 degrees (F) or above in summer and early autumn.
“That old line, 'If you don't like our weather, wait five minutes because it's about to change,' applies to us at certain times of the year,” Mitchell said. “The variability in our climate was a key factor in our cooling system design.”
Water temperatures in the cooling system, Mitchell noted, typically run between 125 and 140 degrees (F) after circulating beneath the data center floor. Through the system redesign, the water is returned to the cooling towers where it passes over specially made ceramic tiles and is cooled by fans and wind – when temperatures cooperate – and returned into the air-conditioning system.
“Water is continuously reused. The only water lost is due to evaporation, and this is very minor,” Mitchell said. “Through this new system, we conservatively estimate generating several million dollars in cost savings each year.”
The chilled water storage tank – 800,000 gallons – enables the facility to operate for up to eight hours without using the chiller/cooling plant.
“Forward-thinking procurement, including prepurchasing the wiring required for the expansion, was used throughout the decision-making and construction effort ,” Weiss said. “Redesigning the electrical routes and prepurchasing resulted in about $2 million in savings because copper prices continued to rise significantly throughout the project.”