Container convenience

NZ-based multi-utility contractor Northpower has clocked up first — an engineering and technology collaboration with Schneider Electric to design and construct the first prefabricated portable data centre of its kind in the Asia–Pacific region.

The 6 m data centre, officially unveiled at Northpower’s Whangarei headquarters on 26 April, was designed to significantly increase availability and redundancy of internal IT systems.

Innovative solutions such as this are proving to be game changers for industries throughout the region looking for cost-effective solutions for secure portable data centres. Compared to traditional data centre designs, the new concept was hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper and, using the template created with Northpower, Schneider Electric has already been commissioned to construct a similar design in Australia.

Northpower Chair Nikki Davies-Colley says the data centre is a superb addition to the Northpower business due to energy efficiency, greater security and lower operational costs.

“The complexity of this design and build created numerous challenges but the success of the project meant that when the container landed at Northpower’s Whangarei head office, it was plugged in and instantly operational,” said Davies-Colley.

“The facility also has provision for the future requirements of Ultra-Fast Broadband points of presence and could expand into co-location services for resellers (eg, other companies storing their servers in the data centre).”

Schneider Electric NZ Country President Ray Dunn said the prefabricated portable data centre has set a benchmark for the future and generated widespread industry interest for other entities seeking such solutions.

“We are proud to have collaborated with such a forward-thinking New Zealand company. Northpower’s challenge was testament to their growth and a changing business environment, which is increasingly dependent on IT convergence and data,” said Dunn,

This is the first prefabricated SmartShelter container in the Asia–Pacific region and was in planning for 12 months. The build time required a quick turnaround — it took only eight weeks to deploy. 

The compact design allows for medium server density and the container features fire suppression, LED lighting for health and safety, and enhanced security through biometric entry. 

The end result represents significant cost savings through a reduced building footprint, as well as reduced impact on the environment. The commonly used IT measure — power usage effectiveness (PUE) — is substantially lower in this installation (at around 1.3) than in typical data centre applications.  

The centre incorporates energy management and is monitored with StruxureWare software.