Excursion to the largest data center in Europe
In the small Portuguese town of Covilha is located one of the most powerful data centers in Europe. The new data center was built and put into operation by the largest Portuguese provider Portugal Telecom at the end of 2013, and next year became the winner of the Global Data Center & Cloud Awards competition in the nomination “Best Data Center of the Year”. The main criteria for the victory of the data center were innovative technologies, energy efficiency, low environmental impact, as well as the method of deploying computing power.
An important role in the design and construction of the facility was played by the engineering company Quark TS. After 15 months of construction, the first building was launched as part of this project. At present, the data center is a cube with sides of 55 meters, in which 6 machine rooms with an area of ​​500 square meters each are located. In the future, it is planned to build three more similar cubes, where 50,000 servers will be located together with the current one.
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During construction, due attention was paid to reducing environmental damage and introducing new technologies. 1.5 thousand powerful solar panels fully provide electricity not only to the data center itself, but also an auxiliary building with the company's offices. Among other things, the staff planted about a thousand trees and installed a parking lot, where the main space is reserved for electric cars and bicycles.
Around the data center is a real water moat, which looks beautiful against the sky. Because of this, it seems as if a cubic building is floating in the clouds (direct reference) to the company's cloud services. However, the main task of the moat is to maintain an ideal microclimate in the data center and to collect rainwater, which, if necessary, can be used by chillers.
As for the cooling system, here the new data center can break all records in terms of efficiency. It is no coincidence that Portugal Telecom has planned construction in CovilhĂŁ on the highest mountain in Portugal. It is in this area that the lowest average annual temperature in the country and weak seismic activity is observed.
The data center has a free cooling system (natural cooling) for 360 days a year. Operators use chillers for about five days a year, which significantly reduces the power efficiency ratio (PUE). Last year, a value of 1.2 units was already reached.
In accordance with the standards of the Uptime Institute, the data center was assigned the Tier III category, although some of the machine halls received the Tier IV category. The server farm is designed according to the N + 1 scheme. In the high-voltage substation of the data center there are twelve diesel electric generators with a total capacity of 22.5 thousand kW * A.
The substation is powered by two separate power lines, and in the event of a power outage can provide the necessary power for a city like CovilhĂŁ. The site also has two tanks for 80 thousand liters. diesel fuel. These reserves are enough to supply energy to the data center for 36 hours. Each machine hall contains about 280 racks and has a network equipment density of 2.2 kW per 1 square meter. m
Special attention was paid to the security system. Several advanced security systems have been introduced, such as vein pattern authentication on the palm of your hand. The building itself is enclosed in a kind of metal safe, which significantly increases the level of security in general.
The data center is guarded round the clock and more than 250 surveillance cameras are installed. Also installed new systems of technical and information security.
The city administration concluded that the new data center of Portugal Telecom significantly increased the growth rate of the economy and the population of the city, which greatly decreased in the mid-1990s due to the decline of the textile industry in the country. More than a thousand new jobs were created in the region, and the city’s economy has increased significantly.
According to the owners of Portugal Telecom, the main purpose of creating such a powerful data center is the beginning of the active development of the company's cloud infrastructure and further cooperation with Cisco. The data center in CovilhĂŁ will be connected to other company facilities located in Brazil, Lisbon and Africa.
An important role in the design and construction of the facility was played by the engineering company Quark TS. After 15 months of construction, the first building was launched as part of this project. At present, the data center is a cube with sides of 55 meters, in which 6 machine rooms with an area of ​​500 square meters each are located. In the future, it is planned to build three more similar cubes, where 50,000 servers will be located together with the current one.
')
During construction, due attention was paid to reducing environmental damage and introducing new technologies. 1.5 thousand powerful solar panels fully provide electricity not only to the data center itself, but also an auxiliary building with the company's offices. Among other things, the staff planted about a thousand trees and installed a parking lot, where the main space is reserved for electric cars and bicycles.
Around the data center is a real water moat, which looks beautiful against the sky. Because of this, it seems as if a cubic building is floating in the clouds (direct reference) to the company's cloud services. However, the main task of the moat is to maintain an ideal microclimate in the data center and to collect rainwater, which, if necessary, can be used by chillers.
As for the cooling system, here the new data center can break all records in terms of efficiency. It is no coincidence that Portugal Telecom has planned construction in CovilhĂŁ on the highest mountain in Portugal. It is in this area that the lowest average annual temperature in the country and weak seismic activity is observed.
The data center has a free cooling system (natural cooling) for 360 days a year. Operators use chillers for about five days a year, which significantly reduces the power efficiency ratio (PUE). Last year, a value of 1.2 units was already reached.
In accordance with the standards of the Uptime Institute, the data center was assigned the Tier III category, although some of the machine halls received the Tier IV category. The server farm is designed according to the N + 1 scheme. In the high-voltage substation of the data center there are twelve diesel electric generators with a total capacity of 22.5 thousand kW * A.
The substation is powered by two separate power lines, and in the event of a power outage can provide the necessary power for a city like CovilhĂŁ. The site also has two tanks for 80 thousand liters. diesel fuel. These reserves are enough to supply energy to the data center for 36 hours. Each machine hall contains about 280 racks and has a network equipment density of 2.2 kW per 1 square meter. m
Special attention was paid to the security system. Several advanced security systems have been introduced, such as vein pattern authentication on the palm of your hand. The building itself is enclosed in a kind of metal safe, which significantly increases the level of security in general.
The data center is guarded round the clock and more than 250 surveillance cameras are installed. Also installed new systems of technical and information security.
The city administration concluded that the new data center of Portugal Telecom significantly increased the growth rate of the economy and the population of the city, which greatly decreased in the mid-1990s due to the decline of the textile industry in the country. More than a thousand new jobs were created in the region, and the city’s economy has increased significantly.
According to the owners of Portugal Telecom, the main purpose of creating such a powerful data center is the beginning of the active development of the company's cloud infrastructure and further cooperation with Cisco. The data center in CovilhĂŁ will be connected to other company facilities located in Brazil, Lisbon and Africa.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/251317/
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