Prefabricated represents next evolution

“While IT technological advances have continued at a rapid pace, until recently the data centre itself has changed little by comparison. Standardised, prefabricated data centre modules represent a disruptive force in a market which has increasingly turned to cloud and co-location because of the considerable time, cost and uncertainties associated with traditional data centre builds,” says Tony Day, Global Director, Data Centre Business Development at Schneider Electric.

With almost all business highly reliant upon technology for day-to-day as well as critical operations, factors such as shrinking business horizons, increasing economic pressures and regulatory demands, heightened environmental and sustainability concerns, and the cost of energy are driving the requirement for change in the data centre sector.

Analysts such as 451 Research have quickly spotted a shift in the way data centres were being engineered with a narrow focus upon availability and reliability (associated with legacy approaches to data centre builds and its dependence upon custom engineering), and transforming to one where speed, use of capital and power efficiency are equally strong drivers (Prefabricated Modular Datacenters: 2014 and Beyond. 451 Research, December 2013).

The benefits of prefabrication are proven and already widely adopted throughout manufacturing, from shipbuilding to the automotive industry and almost all white or brown goods available today. In construction, this is generally not the case although some more recent examples have indicated the potential for significant reductions in project execution times.“Even today most data centres are constructed as buildings and then fitted out with technical equipment and specialised infrastructure. This process has changed little since the first mainframe computer rooms were built 50 years ago,” says Tony Day. “The legacy approach has little relevance to the dynamic requirements of today’s business support needs nor does it provide the scalability needed to facilitate corporate growth.”

With the announcement of a wide range of prefabricated data centre modules and reference designs, coupled with its acquisition of AST Modular, Schneider Electric has made available a trusted standardised architecture which includes scope for adaptation according to individual applications. This enables customers to benefit from speed and simplicity of deployment, lowered capital budget requirements and a right-sized environment to maximise ROI.

Advantages of prefabricated and preassembled modular data centres over traditional deployments include up to 60% reduction in time to deploy, reductions in initial cost, faster return on the clients investment, plug and play upgrade (or reduction) in live facilities, predictable performance, factory assembly, test and optimisation, high reliability and efficiency throughout the ramp out period due to the highly granular scalability, reduced on-site services and waste in production, plus global support.