Emerson Builds Data Center in Sydney

Emerson Network Power has pulled out of an existing Sydney Australia data center and built their own just north of Sydney in North Ryde. The 125 square meter (1,345 square foot ) facility will serve as a live data center for Emerson and allow the company to showcase new technology and products such as Knurr-branded cold aisle containment racks, Liebert UPS systems, DC-inverter emergency power systems, monitoring systems and IT asset management systems.

Chris Mandahl , Emerson's director of sales said that the company "undertook a server virtualization program to consolidate the company's servers from twenty down to ten - such that its ERP system, VoIP system, file and print servers and email and collaboration (Lotus Notes) suite all sit on a single rack in the facility."

Practice what you preach
The move to their own facility included the sales and service departments for Emerson and is on the fifth floor of a commercial building.  As such there were a number of limitations for this small data center.  The facility does not have a diesel generator to serve as a backup power source, forcing Emerson to demonstrate the resilience of its equipment. They use a DC-inverter system that runs off batteries to power air conditioners for up to eight hours and UPS systems for IT equipment also for eight hours.

Even the EPO switch was not sacrificed in the name of demonstrating this 'live' data center. National Product Manager for Emerson Network Power Australia Mark Deguara explains that “for example, we’ve included a cutout switch to demonstrate what happens in the event of a total power outage – how it affects the cooling equipment, the racks and the live servers in the racks.”

The Specs
The facility in North Ryde was designed and constructed in 18 months, has up to 30kW per rack of cooling using Lieber XD units and contains a 60kVA UPS units operating in a dual-bus configuration.The iTnews.com.au article on the Emerson data center includes a photo gallery of the facility.