A cost-saving approach for new data center construction and retrofits

Data centers are commonly engineered to meet the stringent availability requirements of just a few critical business processes, with complete and costly redundancy built-in facility-wide.

But the bulk of your systems and applications are probably not mission-critical and most likely don’t require totally redundant power and cooling infrastructure and other support systems.

Bottom line: The traditional “monolithic” design approach unnecessarily drives up both construction outlays and ongoing operating expenses — at a time when the pressures to conserve capital and cut costs have never been more intense.

Right-sizing your infrastructure to meet your diverse business needs

Now there’s an innovative alternative for avoiding wasteful over-engineering, over-provisioning and over-investment in data centers HP multi-tiered hybrid design right-sizes your availability / redundancy infrastructure by engineering the facility to incorporate multiple operational environments, each aligned with the business priority and criticality of specific systems and applications.

Systems and application environments that — according to rigorous business-impact analysis — require similar levels of business criticality are grouped within segmented raised floor spaces. Each of these pods is supported by appropriate levels of facilities and technology infrastructure. HP consultant/design teams work closely with your IT and Facilities organizations to help ensure that your infrastructure is sized to your actual business requirements and goals.

Business-critical applications, for example, would be deployed only within pods designated for high-availability operational models. These environments would be equipped with fully redundant feeds to all IT equipment, redundant computer and telecommunications networks and redundant mechanical/electrical infrastructure.
Less-than-critical environments would be deployed into pods that have less stringent redundancy.

Multiple business, financial and technology benefits

• Lower capital costs — Upfront center construction outlays can be cut by 15 to 25 percent* — a potential multimillion-dollar savings.
• Lower operations costs — The multi-tiered hybrid model is more energy efficient, consumes fewer resources, occupies less floor space and requires less maintenance and support.
• Higher energy efficiency — Dynamic cooling capabilities can provide targeted capacity to both high-density technology and less-demanding pod environments.
• Increased flexibility — The segmented pods can support applications of widely disparate business criticality.
• Increased adaptability — For long-term viability and cost-containment, modular “blocks” in the power and cooling systems can be readily reconfigured to modify various pods’ redundancy levels.
• Better scalability — The multi-tiered pods are designed with built-in scalability based on projections from the business impact analysis.
• Better business continuity — Systems and equipment failures are contained within smaller, more readily addressable, areas of your data center.

*HP data based on customer modeling