Net gains

Whether it's the creation of another dot.com millionaire or the compromised security of e-mail banking, seldom a day goes by without some mention of the internet. But the fact is that on-line commerce, electronic communication and global access to information will mean there are great rewards to be had. For building services engineers this means work, and potentially lots of it.

'Telecoms hotels' is just one term coined to describe the often windowless buildings housing rows and rows of racks holding servers, switches and routers giving internet suppliers access to the world's fibre optic network. Others terms used include server farms, carrier hotels, carrier hubs, co-location centres, co-hotels, data centres, IP gateways, cyber centres, web farms and mega-internet data centres.

Essentially they all describe the same thing – a facility for housing all the equipment necessary for conducting internet business. Server space is either rented, or entire floors kitted out with a tenant's specific equipment.

For more than ten years the majority of the UK's internet traffic has been carried by the Telehouse situated in London's Docklands, however the deregulation of telephone services, new transatlantic cables and the explosion in internet traffic has created a huge number of companies constructing internet 'carrier hotels'. Companies trading in this way include Level 3, Colt, Cable & Wireless, AT&T, MCI Worldcom, but there are many more.

It is ironic that the former Financial Times printworks in London's Docklands, in use for less than a decade, has already been redeveloped by internet company Global Switch into a huge carrier hotel.

Is location important?

Internet carrier hotels have very specific location requirements. The first is the size of the site. A typical centre requires something in the region of 30 000 m² of net space – and this is just the area occupied by rentable equipment. Sites can be new build or refurbishment. While the latter helps with speed to market, the space has to be quite specific, with floor to ceiling heights of about 4 m and significant space for plant. Floor loadings (in North American parlance) need to be in the range of 12 KN/ft², although some require 19 KN/ft² in certain areas.

Nearness to existing communications networks is also very important. This is hardly surprising when you consider it costs £0.5 million per mile to lay optical fibre. Fortunately the optical fibre network is expanding all the time, with the UK seen as the gateway into western Europe. London is already a major internet capital, with west London a particularly good location as the optical fibre network follows the major communication routes such as railway lines, motorways and even canals.

Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan, Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg and Stock-holm are also growth poles for internet services. (Optical fibre, incidently, is of no use until it is 'lit'. Up until then it is referred to as dark fibre).

The third major pre-requisite is power supply, with buildings requiring in the range of 20 – 40 MW, along with appropriate standby generation.

Types of internet hotels

Telecom hotels fall into two groups: the carriers and the carrier independents. Carriers are the companies who have already laid the fibre and build their own centres over the top. The e-commerce companies then rent the services. The independents build hotel space and invite maybe three or four cable providers into the centre, giving customers a choice of carrier.

Before moving to the UK six months ago, David Marquard of architects Sheppard Robson Corgan had spent ten years in the US on telecom hotel projects. "The UK market is maybe three years behind the US, but it's catching up quickly" he judges.

"In the US, the internet is a large part of everyday life, while in the UK there is still a lot of hesitation. It's only a matter of time before this changes", says Marquard. "I haven't talked to a major telecommunications company who's going to do less than five [centres] in the next 18 – 24 months, and I've talked to several companies who'll do a lot more" he adds.

Ian Bitterlin of critical power and cooling specialists ICW Power has been been working in the sector for over two years. In this time company turnover has doubled on the previous year and is expected to double again next year, most of this can be put down to mega-internet data centres. "A lot of our work is following our UK clients around Europe, so we're working in Germany, Holland, Spain Ireland and Portugal" he reports.

A centre of 30 000 m², with a 1600 W/m² load...could experience a 1°C rise every 3·8 seconds

A typical roll-out programme for many clients consists of ten European locations of about 30 000 m² over three years. And there are probably 15 or 20 firms planning a similar programme.

In the UK, demand for space is currently outstripping supply. "We know of 140 000 m² of demand in various shapes and forms in the western corridor for this type of data centre space" explains Mark Peach, telecoms specialist with FPD Savill. "That's just going from the west end of London out to High Wycombe down to Reading and down to Bracknell, we suspect we haven't identified half of what's out there."

Paul Flatt of building services consultants Hurley Palmer Partnership sees repercussions in terms of maintenance. "Clearly in co-location centres there is a lot more m&e that will need maintaining, and to a high level" he says. "These are mission critical facilities. If they're not maintained and tested regularly, then failure will result in a serious default in their business."

In the future Flatt sees a different approach to maintenance. "Because they're secure facilities, rather than have a separate maintenance company come in they will end up having their own in-house maintenance teams which will have an effect on the market place and the way they procure their maintenance".

The future for building services

So what does this mean to building services engineers? Typically m&e services represent between 60% – 80% of the total spend of a telecom hotel, and with price tag of £40 million for a 30 000 m² hotel, that adds up.

What makes carrier hotels special is the potential load that has to be satisfied. A carrier hotel of 30 000 m² contains around 23 000 cabinets, each one capable of holding 16 file servers and typically drawing 1 KW of power. That translates to 400 – 2000 W/m² resulting in power requirements in the range of 20 – 40 MW.

This power appears as heat that needs to be extracted, requiring about 60% more power again. The addition of electrical capacity for lighting and other ancillaries, raises the load to 1·8 kW per cabinet.

If enough mains power is not available, then on-site generation is needed in the form of gas turbines, gas reciprocating engines or chp. Ireland is a case in hand. In an attempt to attract business' the government laid an extensive fibre optic network without having the necessary power supply in place. ("This resulted in Ireland having more dark fibre than any other country in Europe" said Ian Bitterlin).

With servers not able to withstand a break in power of more than 10 – 20 milliseconds, uninterruptible power supplies are essential. Servers are also sensitive to high rates of change of temperature. If mains power failure occurred and cooling stopped, temperatures can rise rapidly. For example a centre of 30 000 m², with a 1600 W/m² load and a floor to ceiling height of 4·25 m could experience a 1°C rise in temperature every 3·8 s. "Generators have to be up and accepting the load in around 10 s" said Ian Bitterlin.

Technical areas require close-control air conditioning with a target of around 21°C ±1°C and 50% rh. Anything higher than that, and there will be a risk of condensation, anything lower and static becomes a problem.

Fire suppression is also a major issue, because of the volume, pre-action sprinklers are used instead of gas. Very early smoke detection and heat detection is also employed.

Security is another major issue, as Ian Bitterlin says "they're absolutely paranoid about it". Carrier hotels bristle with motion detectors, infra-red lighting sensors, palm readers, retinal scanners, dozens of cameras, even robotic cameras. Companies setting up telecoms hotels are also very secretive about who rents their space.