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Before the first shovel of earth is dug, before ground has been broken, and before the first steel bar or load of concrete is delivered, one of the most critical steps taken can determine whether your data center is built upon a solid foundation, or one fraught with long term effects that reduce its value.

Deciding What’s Important
While every stage of the design, build and operate phase of the data center lifecycle is important, the Concept Design stage will determine a great many things about the facility. Consider it the “foundation of the foundation”. Crucial to this stage are aligning capacity requirements with design considerations. It is also critical to align the design to a design standard at this stage, if there is an expectation or desire to meet the requirements for certification to a design later on. (Put another way, it is unlikely that the site will achieve a TIA-942 Rated-3 objective, if the necessary components that make up the requirements for this rating are not considered at concept design stage). Yes, they can be adjusted later, but often at considerable cost. Getting this component down at the earliest point of pen to paper will save time and considerable cost in the short and long run.

Other fundamentals are the required flexibility of infrastructure. (Not all data centers need to be created with unlimited flexibility. This can again reduce costs for elements that are never going to be realized, no matter how long the data center stands.) Creating the Concept Design that will enable the next stage (Detailed Design) requires experience and deep knowledge of leading designs and solutions. Maybe your data center is best built using modular strategies. Maybe your data center is best built by customizing a suite in a colocation facility. Maybe your data center requires placement in a complex terrain, weather or seismically challenging environment. All aspects of the use, capacity, placement and resilience of the facility must be considered.

Designing for the Ordinary and the Extreme
Global Data Center Engineering designers have decades of experience considering all types of data center configuration and construction ranging from highly stable to some of the most extreme and volatile physical conditions imaginable. Sometimes the data center cannot be built on the perfect patch of stable land, with the ideal climate. Sometimes your data center has to be built at the air port, or on a fault line. (We’ve spent decades designing and building these around the world, particularly Tokyo and California). The business often requires data centers in extreme conditions. We have the experience necessary to create innovative design solutions that can be built and operated literally anywhere. We’re ready to help realize your next data center project, no matter the challenge.