The Cool Side of Tier IV Certification

BASSANO DEL GRAPPA, Italy, November 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

- Climaveneta air conditioning units installed in 2 out of the 3 data centers currently awarded Tier IV Certification of Constructed Facility in Italy.

Data centers are dependent upon the successful and integrated operation of electrical, mechanical, and building systems. As a matter of fact, the most critical decision-making perspective owners and designers must consider is what effect the decision has on the life-cycle-integrated operation of the IT environment in the computer room.

Keeping that in mind, the Uptime Institute, an unbiased advisory organization focused on improving the performance, efficiency, and reliability of businesses' critical infrastructure, created the standard Tier Classification System. It effectively evaluates data center infrastructure in terms of a business' requirements for system availability by providing the data center industry with a consistent method of comparing typically unique, customized facilities based on expected site infrastructure performance.

Nowadays the most advanced data centers in terms of reliability are surely the Tier IV certified ones. That is to say these facilities have multiple, independent, physically isolated systems that provide redundant capacity components and multiple, independent, diverse, active distribution paths simultaneously serving the critical environment, being fully Fault Tolerant Site Infrastructures.

At present in Italy there are only 3 certified constructed Tier IV data centers and Climaveneta is the supplier of the cooling system of 2 of them: Fastweb and Unipol infrastructures.

FOCUS ON COOLING SYSTEM

Fastweb, an Italian telecommunications operator 100% owned by Swisscom, decided to build a new data center offering the highest level of security possible to its clients. This goal led to the decision to achieve Italy's first Tier IV Certification of Constructed Facilities (TCCF) with quality construction and energy efficiency also in mind.

The choice of cooling equipment was made considering the real operational parameters of the system (temperatures, loads, etc.) and the specific design setting logic. Four TECS2 0652 SL-CA-E high-efficiency Climaveneta chillers provide N+N cooling to the facility.

The chillers are cutting edge in terms of energy efficiency, internal redundancy, reliability, occupancy and noise; they are equipped with oil-free magnetic levitation compressors and are specified to be super silent. ClimaPRO, a dedicated control system by Climaveneta ensured that the chillers operate as efficiently as possible, balancing their output ac- cording to the load present. The same system also identifies maintenance actions-in addition to routine maintenance operations-which could improve efficiency.

Ferdinando Ciardullo, the M&E consultant, talking about the cooling system of the certified data center says: "This site has peculiar architecture based on a dual active branch, which translates into dual cooling plants, dual pumping stations, dual cooled water supply circuits, allowing us to always ensure two essential factors: the possibility of servicing any equipment or any part of a circuit any time, without Data Center downtimes."

On the other side Unipol is the second insurance group on the Italian market and the first in Non-Life business, classified among the top ten in Europe. To optimise the Group organization they have planned to gather all the IT services in one data center located in Bologna, on Pilastro Street.

The new facility is an example of efficiency, not only in terms of energy consumption but also of reduced space, cooling and CO² emissions.

At Unipol Data Center Pilastro Climaveneta supplied 4 TECS2/XL-CA/S 0512 high efficiency chillers that easily adapt themselves to different thermal load conditions thanks to their precise thermoregulation together with the use of inverter technology. The compressor is radically innovative: magnetic bearings and digital rotor speed control allow it to guarantee energy efficiency at partial loads, which represents more than 75% of a data center's working time.

Paolo Bussolotto, National Sales director at Climaveneta says, "It has been a pleasure to work with such a big group like Unipol and a challenge to find the best way to satisfy their request in terms of cooling and efficiency." He follows: "The new data center in Pilastro Street is the last of an important sequence of IT cooling projects Climaveneta achieved all over the World and demonstrates the company reliability in terms of HVAC and HPAC solutions."

Even Telecom Italia Acilia data center in Rome and Poste Italiane Torino data center, currently undergoing the Tier IV Certification of the Design Documents section, will be equipped with Climaveneta units. This is further proof that Climaveneta's range presents itself as the ideal solution to match the most demanding requirements of Tier IV Datacenter designers and managers in terms of reliability, efficiency, flexibility and the lowest cost of ownership.