Prefabricated data centres are prêt-à-porter

According to a recent report by DatacenterDynamics Intelligence, modular data centres are growing in popularity. Schneider Electric’s recent announcement of an extensive range of prefabricated modules coupled with a library of reference data centre designs is aimed to meet this growing demand for rapid and predictable data centres. By Matthew Baynes, Enterprise Sales Director, Schneider Electric.

  • 10 years ago Posted in

“THE MARKET IS UNDERGOING extensive and disruptive changes at the moment,” says Matthew Baynes, enterprise sales director at Schneider Electric. “As an industry, we have long recognised the near exponential growth of created, stored and transmitted data. However, trends including cloud computing, social networks and social business, Big Data and the Internet of Things have added momentum to this situation. The velocity and volume of change is driving a need for us to find new ways to design and deliver data centres. This is the context for Schneider Electric’s recent introduction of
its Prefabricated Modular Data Centre offering.”

To date, one thing which has held back the adoption of modular solutions is certain degree of confusion in the market which has been caused by the terminology in circulation. “One issue is that the terms ‘container’ and ‘modular’ are being used interchangeably,” continues Baynes. “We’d say that containers are certainly one form of modular solution - all containers are modular, but not all modular solutions are containers. It’s a mistake to only think of ISO containers when you think of modular approaches.”


In fact, Schneider Electric do provide some of their solutions in the traditional form factor of an ISO container, however, these solutions only share their footprint in common. However, the company believes that the definition of what constitutes modular is less about size and more about concept. “At its most basic, you could even say that a brick is the smallest modular element of a data centre build.

The modular concept also includes skid-based, pod-based, mobile, portable and all-in-one solutions, to name a few. The important distinction is prefabrication and pre-assembly. The equipment should arrive at the site ready for integration with a minimum requirement for on-site engineering services,” Matthew Baynes continues.

Factors limiting adoption
Another feature which has affected rate of adoption is the number and type of solutions on offer. “Very often, modular solutions have been touted by smaller companies which have some great IP, but lack a breadth of offering. The problem is that often, in order to utilise these solutions, the data centre designer was limited by choice and forced to make certain compromises - the use of modular components could have knock-on effects elsewhere in the physical layer. Even larger organisations offering modular solutions, did so on a very limited basis.

To a certain degree, there is an increasing trend towards modular pieces of equipment being utilised in hybrid data centre designs. Because many professionals remain circumspect about putting IT equipment into ‘containers’, these approaches bring together traditional approaches to the white space with modular approaches to external plant and electrical infrastructure. With the introduction of nine new building blocks and 15 reference designs, Schneider Electric has given choice back to the data centre designer. “We’ve taken the view that it is for the equipment manufacturer to provide solutions which answer designer’s requirements and solve his problems - not to make it incumbent upon the designer to change his or her way of working. So we’re giving choice back. And by providing an extensive range of solutions, we’re also removing questions about interoperability. These solutions are designed with open interfaces so that they can be easily integrated, and they come with DCIM pre-installed so that the prefabricated modules can be easily brought into the management system from day one.”

Matthew Baynes says that the new announcement has been received enthusiastically. “What we’re hearing from our customers is that they are very excited about Prefabricated Data Centre Modules - for the first time they can see how their organisation can realise the benefits of prefabrication without having to make significant compromises in the way that they have in the past. We can show them how we can help them to achieve their goals, and we’ve put in place a structured offering which can accommodate their design preferences and overcome some of the constraints which they might be facing”.

The Prefabricated Data Centre Modules also answer the questions of organisations which have globalised operations. “What we’re able to provide is a step and repeat approach to data centre design and builds, with enough breadth in the offering to adapt to different geographic and climatic requirements anywhere in the world. The benefits of predictable performance together with a standardised approach to operations and maintenance, provides better reliability and a basis for higher capacity utilisation and energy efficiency,” says Baynes.

Does modular mean cost saving?
“The subject of cost savings is an interesting one,” says Matthew Baynes. “The reality is that if you take into account the entire construction cost of a data centre, and were able to make a like-for-like comparison between modular and traditional builds, in almost all cases the Prefabricated, Pre-assembled approach would show some cost savings. However, the reality is that there are no tools which allow customers to make such a comparison currently – an effective tool would have to account for the total installed cost, including all of the installation services and site work during the build. These are costs which are complex for customers to account for - which is why Schneider Electric is working to develop an online Trade-Off Tool to help make this comparison possible.”

“What I can say is that where organisations like BSRIA have done extensive studies of modular building constructions, they have found the approach to be significantly more efficient than traditional builds. However, in our conversations with customers we focus very much upon ease of the design phase, the fact that the infrastructure is an agile solution which can be adapted throughout the lifetime of the facility, and the advantages of prefabricated modularity during the construction phase. In addition, with standardised building blocks, it becomes easier to train people to operate the data centre. If you look over the whole lifecycle, you have a much simpler process which is in turn less expensive and more efficient,” says Matthew Baynes

The Schneider Electric offering
In November 2013, Schneider Electric set a new standard in prefabricated data centres with the introduction of 15 prefabricated data centre modules and 14 new prefabricated Data Centre Reference Designs. The reference designs detail complete data centres scalable in 250kW to 2MW increments and meet Uptime Tier II and Tier III standards. The new prefabricated modules deliver IT, power, and/or cooling integrated with best-in-class data centre infrastructure components and StruxureWare™ Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software for an easy-to-deploy, predictable data centre. Prefabricated modules range in capacities from 90kW to 1.2MW and are customizable to meet end user requirements. “Today’s business environment demands data centres that are increasingly more flexible and scalable with an emphasis on deployment speed,” says Matthew Baynes.

“Prefabricated data centres enable data centre managers to maximize the speed of business through rapid installation, easy expansion and improved cash management. This prefabricated approach inherently increases the predictability of the build process, since most of the construction occurs in a factory instead of in the field.”

As flexible capacity becomes critical to data centre operations, modular expansion is becoming a compelling option for data center and facilities managers. With Schneider Electric’s announcement of the industry’s first complete library of prefabricated data centre reference designs, data centre managers looking to optimize deployment speed, performance, reliability and cost have a pre-engineered starting point to realize significant improvements. Those improvements include speed of deployment - prefabricated modules are delivered on-site preconfigured and pretested for an easy installation with a lead time of 12-16 weeks, depending on the level of project complexity. Site preparation and module production can be completed concurrently, resulting in minimised on-site construction and deployment time. In addition they offer flexibility and scalability with various module options and configurations enabling the infrastructure to be deployed and scaled as needed to meet demand.

Capital spending reductions result from eliminating complicated new construction or expensive building retrofits. A further improvement lies in the predictability of the data centre. Prefabrication and factory testing reduces human error and on-site construction risks while improving compliance, safety, and efficiency. Design and manufacturing are closely coupled to greatly minimise uncertainty, which results in more predictable performance of the data centre infrastructure.