How the data center in Kajaani was built and how it can be good
This story is for those who are interested in the practice of building data centers (at the top, because the details of choosing specific equipment for the data center will not be disclosed), or thinking about renting a rack or dedicated server abroad, or want to compare the conditions in which the data center in Russia and abroad.
Summary : beautiful landscapes - a short overview of the characteristics - the history of construction - a question for the community - a bonus to those who read to the end .
Among the Finnish endless lakes and pine forests, 30 kilometers from the ski resort of Vuokatti, along the Kajaani River at Lake Oulujärvi, lies the Renforsin Ranta business park. Lakes and rivers are directly related to the topic of our discussion: in 2012, one of the most modern data centers in Europe was built in the business park, and the surrounding lakes and rivers supply it with energy and cooling water.
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Why was the data center built here? Here, the price of electricity is lower (it does not need to be transmitted from afar), there are four local power stations and several high-voltage lines connected to the Finnish national power grid, there are no problems with cooling (the water temperature in the lake is from 1 o to 23 o ), there is room for expansion, There are three optical links - one each in Espoo and Oulu (and further to Sweden), one to the Russian Kostomuksha (and further to Moscow).
Operators Kaisanet, TeliaSonera, Elisa, TDC, FNE, PPO and FUNET have a direct connection on the site, and many Russian operators already have partnership agreements with one or more of them.
One of the anchor tenants of the data center has become CSC - Computer Science Center, the state organization owned by the Finnish Ministry of Education and owning serious computing power in the country. On their computers, the weather is calculated throughout Finland, and university scientists conduct their scientific calculations on them.
Among the partners of the center is IBM, ready to provide its servers for rent and ensure their stable operation.
Dry language characteristics of the data center should say the following:
Square
( note : it’s a bit unusual for me that Finnish colleagues place essentially different data centers owned by different companies under one roof, but this is true. They have a common mainline cooling system, common electricity supply, common building, common perimeter of security, etc. P.)
Nutrition
120 MW are produced locally from renewable energy sources and 400 MW are supplied from the Finnish national grid with four independent high-voltage lines;
Renewable energy sources are a biofuel power station and three hydroelectric power plants, all of which have direct connection to the data center platform.
Cooling
Air and water temperatures in Kajaani allow the use of passive cooling all year round.
Optics
Three separate links with Internet traffic exchange points in Finland, Sweden and Russia.
Distinctive features of the data center : you can bring to the racks in the existing data center significantly more power than usual (up to 28 kW). Rent racks with such power can now.
The idea to build a data center in Kajaani came, apparently, at the same time to specialists from CSC and the Kajaani government: one needed a new platform, others needed efficient use of the climate and infrastructure advantages of the region.
In 2010, CSC decided that it was necessary to choose a place for a new large data center. Two events pushed the solution: first, the CSC needed a place to expand the computing power and reduce the cost of their maintenance. Second, Google built its new data center in Hamina. It has become even clearer that Finland, with its cold, clean lakes and relatively inexpensive electric power, is a paradise not only for tourism and fishing, but also for data centers that require cooling and power supply.
In the same year, they held a competition for the place of construction: applicants from local administrations competed in the quality of infrastructure, the required investment in construction and the price of renting a site. Won the city of Kajaani.
In 2011, planned infrastructure. First of all, the data center was decided to be placed in the building of a former pulp and paper mill, which closed several years ago (apparently due to a decrease in demand for paper).
In January 2012, construction began. The data center was rather big: the building of the former combine was high, and there was plenty of room for racks. Fitted two floors (in the photo - the construction phase).
Photos taken from the presentation of Peter Jenkins .
In January-February 2012 a project was made without detail.
All items worked from February to April.
From April to August, they laid all the pipes, conducted the wiring.
In August and September they made raised floors, stretched and connected all cables.
In September, set the rack.
September and October were tested, in November, the data center launched into commercial operation.
They decided not to receive the Uptime Institute certificate, since none of the potential customers were concerned about them. In the future, if needed, the data center will easily get Tier III by the Uptime Institute, say colleagues from the data center management company.
It so happened that colleagues from the data center cluster in Kajaani decided that unique conditions could be provided for Habr, and offered an option: they would listen carefully to our community before approving prices for new customers.
Technically, the Finnish data center in Kajaani can offer any services for a truly wide range of clients (from a site for building a separate data center to cheap VPS for rent), but it seems to me that the most interesting may be the rental of racks and dedicated servers (even with service, though without). Correct me if I'm wrong.
Of course, anchor tenants concluding contracts for 10 years or more and renting dozens of racks at once, receive special prices. There is an assumption that there are people on Habré who need three hundred racks for now, but one-two-three racks or even one-two-three servers in Finland would be in business.
The delays and channel widths to Kajaani promise to be better than before Hetzner and LeaseWeb for the significant part of Runet, so there is a point in hosting servers in the new data center. More precisely, to the traffic exchange point in Helsinki - 4 ms, to Oulu - 3 ms, to MSK-IX - no more than 30 ms . Note for comparison that ping from my server, standing in Hetzner, to MSK-IX is 60 ms.
The essence of the proposal for Habr : we tell what we would like to receive from the data center operator in Kajaani, and how much we want to pay. Colleagues from the data center cluster in Kajaani are trying to ensure this. “They try” because they exclude the desire to rent a rack for $ 99 / month. can not be excluded, and it will be impossible to satisfy. That is, they will listen to all wishes, and those who are in harmony with common sense are ready to satisfy.
You can leave suggestions in the comments to the post, write to me in personal messages, and also (only in English) send by email to Carl Wideman (Carl Wideman) at the address from the “Contacts” section of the data center cluster site (it’s the first in the list).
Colleagues from Kajaani will arrive at Datacentre Summit 2013 in Moscow on March 18. The event is paid, and if someone who reads these lines wants to visit him not out of idle interest, but with a desire to discuss specific plans and joint business with the data center manager in Kajaani (ordering racks, servers, selling their services in Russia, etc.) ), then the company managing the data center cluster is ready to pay for the Datacentre Summit tickets to the first five interested persons. The desire can be expressed in personal messages to me, as well as by e-mail to Carl Wideman, see the address above .
An important clarification about the bonus : tickets - to the conference, and not to Moscow! The road to Moscow - at their own expense.
UPD : “raised floors” -> raised floors. Thanks for the amendment, but when I wrote, I forgot how it is called.
Summary : beautiful landscapes - a short overview of the characteristics - the history of construction - a question for the community - a bonus to those who read to the end .
Among the Finnish endless lakes and pine forests, 30 kilometers from the ski resort of Vuokatti, along the Kajaani River at Lake Oulujärvi, lies the Renforsin Ranta business park. Lakes and rivers are directly related to the topic of our discussion: in 2012, one of the most modern data centers in Europe was built in the business park, and the surrounding lakes and rivers supply it with energy and cooling water.
')
Why was the data center built here? Here, the price of electricity is lower (it does not need to be transmitted from afar), there are four local power stations and several high-voltage lines connected to the Finnish national power grid, there are no problems with cooling (the water temperature in the lake is from 1 o to 23 o ), there is room for expansion, There are three optical links - one each in Espoo and Oulu (and further to Sweden), one to the Russian Kostomuksha (and further to Moscow).
Operators Kaisanet, TeliaSonera, Elisa, TDC, FNE, PPO and FUNET have a direct connection on the site, and many Russian operators already have partnership agreements with one or more of them.
One of the anchor tenants of the data center has become CSC - Computer Science Center, the state organization owned by the Finnish Ministry of Education and owning serious computing power in the country. On their computers, the weather is calculated throughout Finland, and university scientists conduct their scientific calculations on them.
Among the partners of the center is IBM, ready to provide its servers for rent and ensure their stable operation.
Dry language characteristics of the data center should say the following:
Square
- the area of ​​the constructed data center is 24000 sq. m .;
- 11000 sq.m. have already been rented, of which 7000 sq.m. - CSC;
- 800 square meters is now available for ordering racks in the existing data center. m (they are rented by the colocation operator, who rented a part of the same 11,000 sq.m. mentioned above), and there is still free space under the roof - 13,000 sq.m, where you can build your data center;
- a site on which you can build your data centers in separate buildings: 50-200 Ha of investment space with a ready infrastructure.
( note : it’s a bit unusual for me that Finnish colleagues place essentially different data centers owned by different companies under one roof, but this is true. They have a common mainline cooling system, common electricity supply, common building, common perimeter of security, etc. P.)
Nutrition
120 MW are produced locally from renewable energy sources and 400 MW are supplied from the Finnish national grid with four independent high-voltage lines;
Renewable energy sources are a biofuel power station and three hydroelectric power plants, all of which have direct connection to the data center platform.
Cooling
Air and water temperatures in Kajaani allow the use of passive cooling all year round.
Optics
Three separate links with Internet traffic exchange points in Finland, Sweden and Russia.
Distinctive features of the data center : you can bring to the racks in the existing data center significantly more power than usual (up to 28 kW). Rent racks with such power can now.
How to build
The idea to build a data center in Kajaani came, apparently, at the same time to specialists from CSC and the Kajaani government: one needed a new platform, others needed efficient use of the climate and infrastructure advantages of the region.
In 2010, CSC decided that it was necessary to choose a place for a new large data center. Two events pushed the solution: first, the CSC needed a place to expand the computing power and reduce the cost of their maintenance. Second, Google built its new data center in Hamina. It has become even clearer that Finland, with its cold, clean lakes and relatively inexpensive electric power, is a paradise not only for tourism and fishing, but also for data centers that require cooling and power supply.
In the same year, they held a competition for the place of construction: applicants from local administrations competed in the quality of infrastructure, the required investment in construction and the price of renting a site. Won the city of Kajaani.
In 2011, planned infrastructure. First of all, the data center was decided to be placed in the building of a former pulp and paper mill, which closed several years ago (apparently due to a decrease in demand for paper).
In January 2012, construction began. The data center was rather big: the building of the former combine was high, and there was plenty of room for racks. Fitted two floors (in the photo - the construction phase).
Photos taken from the presentation of Peter Jenkins .
In January-February 2012 a project was made without detail.
All items worked from February to April.
From April to August, they laid all the pipes, conducted the wiring.
In August and September they made raised floors, stretched and connected all cables.
In September, set the rack.
September and October were tested, in November, the data center launched into commercial operation.
They decided not to receive the Uptime Institute certificate, since none of the potential customers were concerned about them. In the future, if needed, the data center will easily get Tier III by the Uptime Institute, say colleagues from the data center management company.
Especially for Habr
It so happened that colleagues from the data center cluster in Kajaani decided that unique conditions could be provided for Habr, and offered an option: they would listen carefully to our community before approving prices for new customers.
Technically, the Finnish data center in Kajaani can offer any services for a truly wide range of clients (from a site for building a separate data center to cheap VPS for rent), but it seems to me that the most interesting may be the rental of racks and dedicated servers (even with service, though without). Correct me if I'm wrong.
Of course, anchor tenants concluding contracts for 10 years or more and renting dozens of racks at once, receive special prices. There is an assumption that there are people on Habré who need three hundred racks for now, but one-two-three racks or even one-two-three servers in Finland would be in business.
The delays and channel widths to Kajaani promise to be better than before Hetzner and LeaseWeb for the significant part of Runet, so there is a point in hosting servers in the new data center. More precisely, to the traffic exchange point in Helsinki - 4 ms, to Oulu - 3 ms, to MSK-IX - no more than 30 ms . Note for comparison that ping from my server, standing in Hetzner, to MSK-IX is 60 ms.
The essence of the proposal for Habr : we tell what we would like to receive from the data center operator in Kajaani, and how much we want to pay. Colleagues from the data center cluster in Kajaani are trying to ensure this. “They try” because they exclude the desire to rent a rack for $ 99 / month. can not be excluded, and it will be impossible to satisfy. That is, they will listen to all wishes, and those who are in harmony with common sense are ready to satisfy.
You can leave suggestions in the comments to the post, write to me in personal messages, and also (only in English) send by email to Carl Wideman (Carl Wideman) at the address from the “Contacts” section of the data center cluster site (it’s the first in the list).
Bonus for the patient reader (or the impatient End key presser)
Colleagues from Kajaani will arrive at Datacentre Summit 2013 in Moscow on March 18. The event is paid, and if someone who reads these lines wants to visit him not out of idle interest, but with a desire to discuss specific plans and joint business with the data center manager in Kajaani (ordering racks, servers, selling their services in Russia, etc.) ), then the company managing the data center cluster is ready to pay for the Datacentre Summit tickets to the first five interested persons. The desire can be expressed in personal messages to me, as well as by e-mail to Carl Wideman, see the address above .
An important clarification about the bonus : tickets - to the conference, and not to Moscow! The road to Moscow - at their own expense.
UPD : “raised floors” -> raised floors. Thanks for the amendment, but when I wrote, I forgot how it is called.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/172497/
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