by Rob Taylor, Bill Kosik and Doug Oathout, Hewlett-Packard

7 Innovative Data Center Designs

News
Dec 1, 2010

From reflective roofs to pods, innovative features have popped up in data centers worldwide this year. Check out these 7 unusual designs.

Now That’s Green

Hewlett-Packard shared this peek at 3 of its own data centers and four customer data centers that break the mold.

Shown here, HP’s next generation Wynyard data center, located in northeast England, uses a progressive free-air cooling technology and an energy-efficient and sustainable design that incorporates recycled materials and harvested rainwater.

The facility is designed to operate without chillers for 98 percent of the year, and achieves an average annual PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness ) rating of less than 1.2.

Slideshow: The World’s Coolest Data Centers

Tornado-Proof and Reflective Roof

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HP’s Tulsa, Okla. data center uses a reflective roofing system and an innovative water cooling system that will save several million dollars in costs, while maintaining the capacity to withstand a force five tornado.

Tulsa’s 800,000-gallon chilled-water storage tank enables the facility to operate for up to eight hours without using a chiller/cooling plant.

Slideshow: 5 Tools to Prevent Energy Waste in the Data Center

Just Three Server Cabinets

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Roswell Park Cancer Institute provides comprehensive cancer care and fundamental contributions to cancer research. Facing an increasingly expanding system, Roswell consolidated 200 of the institute’s physical servers into 174 virtual machines. All but three of Roswell’s server cabinets (shown here) will be removed when the data center consolidates onto the HP BladeSystem Matrix. The center expects the consolidated environment to reduce overhead costs by an estimated $2 million, including reduced costs for system administrative, maintenance and power and cooling.

About the authors:

From Hewlett-Packard, Rob Taylor is a VP of Data Center Services, Enterprise Services; Bill Kosik is a Principal Data Center Energy Technologist, Technology Services; and Doug Oathout is a VP of Marketing, Converged Infrastructure.