Unisys is aiming to reduce power consumption by 25% at its Kapiti datacentre, near Wellington.
The company announced today it would implement a modular design in its datacentre there to enable more efficient cooling. The datacentre's capacity would also double with the investment.
Unisys expects the expanded parts of the facility to be commissioned in October. "A key feature of the expansion is the incorporation of a movable floating wall, which allows the interior wall of the datacentre to be extended outwards as client demand increases," a company statement explains. "This modular approach is designed to restrict the space to be cooled to the area that is physically being used, limit overall energy consumption and improve resource utilisation." New technologies will be implemented that incorporate free cooling techniques. These will combine under-floor process cooler technology with supplementary overhead cooling capable of supporting up to 2000 watts per square metre, the company says. Rain water tanks are also part of the plans, to provide cooling in the form of humidity water feeds into the computer room and reduce reliance on piped water supplies. The facility will be supported by a two megawatt power plant, the company says. “Rather than build a large, resource-hungry environment to meet as-yet-undefined customer needs, we have designed this facility to expand so that we can scale building size, power supply and cooling as demand grows,” Unisys New Zealand managing director Brett Hodgson says. The datacentre site is capable of expanding a further 1000 square metres beyond the planned expansion, Unisys says. The Kapiti datacentre is connected to Unisys' Auckland datacentre via an MPLS backbone.