How Managed Services Drive Data Centre Sustainability
Managed Services are a range of IT and infrastructure management solutions offered by a third-party service provider. By offering, for example, security management or data backup, managed services can offload the operational burden from a business, allowing them to get back to what matters to them, while ensuring their data centre infrastructure is maintained.
CoolIT Systems provides design, deployment and maintenance services for data centres deploying liquid cooling technology, while Aggreko is a supplier of temporary power, cooling and testing for data centres across the world. We caught up with both to discuss the role of managed services, the impact of liquid cooling and making sustainability strides.
Leading liquid cooling solutions for high-performance computing
Chad Brears is the Manager of Project Engineering for the Professional Services (PFS) Department at CoolIT Systems, which specialises in scalable liquid cooling solutions for the world’s most demanding computing environments. In the desktop enthusiast market, CoolIT provides unparalleled performance for a range of gaming systems.
“In the enterprise data centre and high-performance computing markets, CoolIT partners with global leaders in OEM server design to develop the most efficient and reliable liquid cooling solutions for their leading-edge products,” Chad explains.
Through its modular Direct Liquid Cooling technology, CoolIT enables dramatic increases in rack densities, component performance and power efficiencies.
As the Manager of Project Engineering, Chad’s role at CoolIT Systems is to guide the team of project engineers within the Professional Services department.
“The project engineers' main function within PFS is to support the sales team by providing full system pricing, technical solution design and project management for the lifecycle of data centre liquid cooling deployments,” he explains. “To give an idea of CoolIT’s growth, when I started in the PFS department we had three project engineers. Now, we have seven Project Engineers on onboard, an application team lead and a fully dedicated service group which includes four field service specialists led by our Operations Team Lead.”
Project management has been a significant area of growth for Chad, from coordinating multiple stakeholders to ensuring timely delivery and maintaining high-quality standards are crucial aspects of his role.
“As a leader and manager, I am continually learning and enhancing my leadership skills,” he says. “This ongoing development enables me to better support my team, foster a collaborative environment and drive successful outcomes for our clients.”
CoolIT Systems’ complete end-to-end liquid cooling solution consists of its coldplates patented with Split-Flow™ technology, passive coldplate loops (PCL), rack manifolds, secondary fluid networks (SFN) and coolant distribution units (CDUs).
“At the server level, CoolIT’s New Product Introduction (NPI) team works closely with semiconductor and server manufacturers to produce PCLs adapted to each generation of their high-performance computing products,” Chad explains.
The process for implementing a CoolIT liquid cooling solution begins at the server level, where the Professional Services team collaborates with the MIC sales team and the customer, to define the desired solution based on what CoolIT PCL (s) is being utilised within that server.
“The Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) - the heart of the liquid cooling system, is central to this process. CoolIT offers a range of CDUs categorised into liquid-to-air and liquid-to-liquid types,” Chad continues.
Once the customer's needs are understood, CoolIT Systems’ Professional Services team selects the appropriate CoolIT products to complete the customer’s liquid cooling system. This involves choosing the right rack manifold based on server connections and flow requirements, followed by selecting the CDU based on system size, flow needs, facility infrastructure and budget. If an in-row CDU is chosen, a Secondary Fluid Network (SFN) is also required to connect the CDU to the liquid-cooled IT racks.
“After the design is finalised, deployment of the CoolIT hardware is fully handled by the Professional Service team and our in-region Authorised Service Providers. In addition, the PFS group will work closely with the data centre facility team to ensure all facility requirements are met based on the solution that’s been chosen,” Chad adds.
Finally, the PFS group offers full coverage maintenance packages which can include scheduled preventative maintenance visits as well as any unplanned maintenance that could occur over the life of the term.
Ensuring sustainability and resilience in Europe's data centres
Navigating the capacity limitations in Europe’s energy landscape is at the top of many data centre operators’ agendas. For Chris Rason, Managing Director of Energy Solutions Europe at Aggreko, the need to make sure that concrete plans are in place has never been more pressing, especially while uncertainty still persists about meeting growing capacity demand while managing costs, resilience and the need to be more sustainable.
“We are only going to see the need for new data centres increase. But, with regulations becoming tighter, including the need for data centres to report to the European Union about energy and water use, how this expansion will unfold is up for debate,” Chris shared. “Yet what isn’t up for debate are the ongoing capacity issues in Europe and how they may hamper facility uptime.”
Chris argues that this must be planned around if uptime is to be safeguarded in a sustainable, efficient and cost-effective manner.
Once the customer's needs are understood, CoolIT Systems’ Professional Services team selects the appropriate CoolIT products to complete the customer’s liquid cooling system. This involves choosing the right rack manifold based on server connections and flow requirements, followed by selecting the CDU based on system size, flow needs, facility infrastructure and budget. If an in-row CDU is chosen, a Secondary Fluid Network (SFN) is also required to connect the CDU to the liquid-cooled IT racks.
“After the design is finalised, deployment of the CoolIT hardware is fully handled by the Professional Service team and our in-region Authorised Service Providers. In addition, the PFS group will work closely with the data centre facility team to ensure all facility requirements are met based on the solution that’s been chosen,” Chad adds.
Finally, the PFS group offers full coverage maintenance packages which can include scheduled preventative maintenance visits as well as any unplanned maintenance that could occur over the life of the term.
“Indeed, the costs of outages are high. 54% of respondents to the Uptime Institute’s 2023 annual outage survey said their most recent significant, serious or severe outage cost more than US$100,000, with a further 16% saying that their most recent outage cost more than US$1m,” Chris explains. “One way of avoiding these situations would be through accessing short-term temporary power solutions. As recently identified in our latest whitepaper, Bridging the Gap for European Data Centres, the level of strain on Europe’s power grids is getting worse.”
In conversation with his peers across the sector, Chris has seen capacity issues that once only affected Tier 1 markets now affect their Tier 2 counterparts, including Madrid, Milan, Warsaw and Munich. In these situations, he advises using shorter-term decentralised energy solutions which can offer reliable and stable connections when traditional systems fail and help further safeguard data centre operations.
It’s important to note that maintaining uptime is not the only area where temporary equipment procurement strategies can alleviate immediate pressure. With sustainability at the forefront of the minds of many operators, hired short- to medium-term solutions can help support the transition to greener power sources.
“Legislation to reduce power consumption has been increasingly anticipated across the sector, given how energy-intensive these facilities can be,” Chris continues. “Recent figures have suggested that data centres across the continent are estimated to consume up to 3% of all energy used in the EU.”
With AI and other processes continuing to gather pace, this is only likely to increase. Given the recent news that Ireland’s data centres have overtaken electricity use of all urban homes combined, Chris anticipates that regulations will likely become more stringent to help manage soaring power demand.
Yet changing over to sustainable energy sources will not be a quick process, which is why hired generator solutions may become a more appealing prospect over time. However, reducing carbon footprints while maintaining uptime will undoubtedly require careful planning by data centre operators, and the leveraging of supply chain expertise.
“At Aggreko, we have been working with customers across Europe to save energy and reduce emissions through technologies in our Greener Upgrades® portfolio. For example, I have seen data centre operators use Battery and Energy Storage Systems (BESS) technology in conjunction with a Stage V diesel, gas or HVO generator set to sustainably improve operational efficiency,” Chris says.
In this instance, by reducing the amount of fuel consumed and supplying a spinning reserve of energy storage, power consumption rates can be reduced during peak usage periods. Unlike backup generators, BESS can also pick up power loads in a matter of seconds, greatly reducing the possibility of outages.
“I’m also continuing to see another key reason why PPAs are under such wide consideration – they give a stable price for energy at a time of great pricing volatility across Europe,” Chris continues. “This cannot be underestimated, especially considering the other significant sustainability benefits PPAs can provide.”
This includes the adoption of solar as part of PPAs or other renewable sources, removing further financial barriers for facility operators looking to explore greener energy generation technologies.
“Getting the right solution is key, which is why I would advise data centre stakeholders to engage with an energy solutions partner like Aggreko to accelerate their transition to greener operations with minimal disruption,” says Chris.
With the data centre sector now under huge pressure to reduce their energy-intensive power usage and improve overall sustainability, Chris feels that there’s never been a more important time to consider the use of short-term and long-term hired generator solutions. While financial concerns such as prohibitive up-front purchasing costs may slow down the transition to new technologies, temporary solutions offer a middle ground where operators can adopt more flexible and dynamic strategies without accumulating huge costs.
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