Intechnology are the U.K’s largest pure-play managed IT service provider; and the only service provider to offer a mix of value added hosting, voice & Data services that are integrated and delivered on their own IP network.
Their Harrogate Data Centre provides high quality environments to over 250 commercial and public sector organizations around the country. With a floor space of over 7000ft2 and over 3000 Terrabytes of data under 24/7 management the challenge was to replace and upgrade the Data Centre while it was fully operational. The building was a multi use facility with a 24 hour call centre on upper floors.
As part of a specialist team, Dovebrace Ltd were engaged to provide a solution in upgrading the existing Environmental conditions within the 4No Large Data halls to provide N+1 facilities in each room with diversity on the main plant to give the site a Tier 3 level with the latest power management and cooling technologies.
In providing a solution many obstacles had to be removed, such as upgrading the facility in a live operational environment without downtime to critical services. Planning the installation of over 1.4MW of cooling in a 24/7 working office block and Data Centre without disturbing the office staff or any server equipment.
The key to the solution was to plan the works in finite detail and design the construction works to fit the design envelope of the building. This involved the close liaison of the client and Building owner together with the Construction team.
A great concern is always how to convey the absorbed heat from the Data hall externally. As is the norm in Data Centre’s the floors and ceilings are full of cables, fibres and other infrastructure items. To reduce the impact we selected to install multiple stand alone Close control systems operating on a vapour compression direct expansion cycle. To increase energy efficiency we selected twin compressors with VRF technology. This allowed for a phased installation with a minimum footprint for piped services within the Floors and ceilings of the Data Halls.
To give greater diversity the heat rejection equipment was separated with half located on the 3rd floor roof with the remaining half installed externally at ground level in a new compound on the other side of the service road.