Solution for rapid data centre expansion

With growing demands on its IT infrastructure, the Finland-based CSC – IT Center for Science needed to expand its existing modular data centre facility in a way that could meet its requirements of fitting within a certain budget, having a short time to deployment and featuring a robust design that would withstand Finland’s harshest temperatures.

To solve this problem, CSC deployed CommScope’s modular, purpose-built data centre solution Data Center on Demand (DCoD). CSC deployed its first CommScope modular data centre in 2012, adding a second at the end of 2014.

In less than three years, the solution delivered significant bottom-line benefits to the organisation, including:

• Sustainability: Significantly reduced energy consumption and costs, compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar data centre, demonstrate CSC’s commitment to leading-edge technologies that reduce its carbon footprint and complement its ecological credentials.
• Water usage effectiveness: One DCoD at CSC consumes approximately 120 m³ of water each year — less than a typical household in Finland (164 m³). The water usage effectiveness of the DCoD greatly offsets the extensive energy required for typical data centre chillers.
• Power usage effectiveness (PUE): While the average PUE for a typical data centre varies from 1.8 to 2.9, the DCoD installation at CSC averages 1.03 to 1.06. This is all the more significant noting that summer-winter temperatures swing from +30°C to -35°C.
• Seamless expansion: The DCoD is an expansion of the existing data centre, forming a single expanded facility. Installation and integration had to be achieved without causing any interruption to the existing IT services.

“The concept of a data centre has fundamentally changed. When considering the requirement for the physical space, traditional brick-and-mortar facilities may not be appropriate for all project scenarios,” said Ciaran Forde, vice president, Global Data Center Solutions, CommScope. 

“The CSC project is a perfect example of where an organisation requiring more capacity was able to expand in phases. The modular approach of Data Center on Demand enabled a phased capacity expansion from an engineering and economically sound perspective.”

“IT technology and applications are changing very fast. So our data centres need to be able to adapt to those changes in a scalable and cost-efficient way. Customers, suppliers, owners and personnel alike must feel certain that we will fulfil our commitments and promises in an ethically sustainable manner,” said Tero Tuononen, director ICT Platforms, CSC. 

“Right-sizing and delivery strategy are key factors when planning for data centre capacity, which is why we decided on CommScope’s Data Center on Demand solution.”

Data Center on Demand is globally available to CommScope customers and is supported through CommScope’s extensive PartnerPRO Network.