New Rackspace Data Centre Recognised for Outstanding Green Data Centre Credentials
London – 12 June 2014 - Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR), a leading global provider of data centre and colocation solutions, andRackspace Hosting® (NYSE: RAX) have been awarded Special Recognition for Outstanding Green Data Centre Credentials at the 7th Annual Global Data Centre and Cloud Awards.
The bespoke, 130,000 square foot data centre, located in Crawley, West Sussex, was designed in close collaboration between Digital Realty and Rackspace to meet the specific needs of Rackspace customers, encompassing energy consumption, availability and other design requirements.
The data centre facility makes use of innovative 'indirect outside air' cooling technology, without mechanical cooling. Delivering outstanding Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and a design BREEAM Certified Excellent, the energy required to operate the data centre is expected to be reduced by 80 per cent, setting a new benchmark for ‘green’ data centres in Europe. In addition, the design of the new data centre will be compatible with the Open Compute design framework changing the game in data centre operations.
“We are very proud to be involved in building one of the greenest data centres in Europe and delighted to be honoured with this special recognition,” said Gary Boyd, Senior Director, Data Centre Project Engineering at Rackspace. “Working closely with Digital Realty, we were able to factor in everything from minimising landfill and environmental impact during construction to using more efficient LED lighting and rainwater harvesting - all while delivering an exceptional data centre facility that meets the accessibility, availability and data management needs of our customers.”
“We are pleased to be recognised for our commitment to sustainable building practices and energy efficiency for this important project for Rackspace,” said Bernard Geoghegan, Managing Director, EMEA, for Digital Realty. “By collaborating with Rackspace, we were able to design and build a credentialed, next generation, ultra-efficient data centre while enabling our client to deliver cost effective cloud services to its customers across Europe.”
The Data Centre and Cloud awards celebrate the technical and commercial success of the data centre and cloud industry in Europe. The award was announced on 11th June at a ceremony at Plaisterers' Hall, London.
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About Rackspace
Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) is the global leader in hybrid cloud and founder of OpenStack®, the open-source operating system for the cloud. Hundreds of thousands of customers look to Rackspace to deliver the best-fit infrastructure for their IT needs, leveraging a product portfolio that allows workloads to run where they perform best—whether on the public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers, or a combination of platforms. The company’s award-winning Fanatical Support® helps customers successfully architect, deploy and run their most critical applications. Headquartered in San Antonio, TX, Rackspace operates data centers on four continents. Rackspace is featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.
About Digital Realty
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. supports the data centre and colocation strategies of more than 600 firms across its secure, network-rich portfolio of data centres located throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Digital Realty’s clients include domestic and international companies of all sizes, ranging from financial services, cloud and information technology services, to manufacturing, energy, gaming, life sciences and consumer products. www.digitalrealty.com
Notes to the editor
About the Global Data Centre and Cloud Awards
The annual Global Data Centre and Cloud Awards are judged by a panel of members of the data centre community and industry experts. Now in its 7th year, the awards celebrate the technical and commercial success of the datacentre and cloud industry in Europe. Aiming to reflect the evolution of the data centre, this year the awards included new categories such as ‘Best Improvement Process for Energy Efficiency in the Data Centre’ and ‘Financial Services Data Centre of the Year’. The Awards are hosted by BroadGroup, an international consulting firm providing professional advice, research, publishing and events. For more information please read more here www.datacentreawards.com
Green Credentials
The Crawley data centre has adopted a blend of the ASHRAE Recommended and Allowable Ranges promoting best performance without impacting on server availability. This has enabled Rackspace to remove more typical refrigerant cooling systems. In addition, the air flow from the roof mounted units will be delivered to the white space with as little pressure drop as possible and also in a way that enables high density racks to be deployed. The management of fan energy along with removal of compressors will play a key role in reducing the amount of energy necessary to cool the servers and therefore the PUE rating for the facility.
Rackspace will be using an indirect cooling solution that necessitates much lower water consumption than other systems in its class and significantly less water than a traditional cooling tower. Through a combination of different design innovations, Rackspace and Digital Realty are aiming to achieve an annualised PUE of 1.17 or less for the facility that significantly reduces the amount of energy consumed.
The construction will incorporate a modular approach with the key items of plant including cooling solution, generators, UPS and switchgear, and transformers to be constructed off site and craned into position thereby reducing the time to deploy, improving the quality and providing a scalable solution. These items of plant will be located on the roof, reducing the footprint and therefore the environmental impact of the facility by reducing the amount of support space required to support the data halls.
Connectivity
The Crawley site will be connected to the existing Rackspace London metro fibre ring. This links its Slough facility to the main connectivity exchanges in London. The Crawley site is within a few miles of the main European long haul route therefore Rackspace will extend its London metro fibre ring using dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technology. This enables Rackspace to quickly and easily increase bandwidth capabilities between sites as we add additional provider connectivity.
