DCK Guide To Modular Data Centers

The data center of the future is letting go of long-held traditions for design, with modular products and providers ushering in a new era.  A modular data center is an approach that implies the use of a factory-built module or a method for delivering data center infrastructure in a modular fashion.  These modular solutions takes the best ideas for design, reliability and efficiency and package them into a prefabricated, repeatable and operationally optimized module.

What is Modular?

Performing an image search on the Internet for a data center will result in a wide assortment of designs used in the past. The architectural, mechanical and electrical designs for data centers have typically been an open book.  They were an open book to match existing IT requirements and an attempt to anticipate what requirements will be for the next 10 to 15 years.

The concept of a modular data center solution has eluded definition, if not comprehension.  Through the short history of modular solutions and vendor marketing, a definition and categorization of solutions has emerged.

A container is a data center product incorporating customized infrastructure to support power or cooling infrastructure, or racks of IT equipment. Containers are built using an ISO (International Standards Organization) intermodal shipping container. 

Modular is an approach to data center design that implies either a prefabricated data center module or a deployment method for delivering data center infrastructure in a modular, quick and flexible method.

Modular Solutions

To build on terminology that has grown around container and modula,r Jason Schafer from The 451 Group categorized the types of modular solutions available.  Of the four categories, only three met the definition for modular. The fourth type, a phased approach, may be conceived of as modular in that it is built-out gradually, but is not truly modular. The remaining three types of modular data centers consist of 1) Container, 2) Modular components and 3) modular providers.

Modular 1.0

A number of innovations marked the beginnings of the modular products and ideas: