Rackspace and Digital Reality have teamed up for a new energy-efficient data centre in the UK with a novel approach to cooling.
The new facility will be based in Crawley, West Sussex, and will take up 130,000 square feet of a 15 acre campus.
The building will start with two data suites with a 6MW capacity, with an additional two data suites coming later and bumping the capacity up to 10MW.
The first stage of building is expected to be complete in the first half of 2015.
Going green
The data centre will employ indirect outside air cooling, a first in the UK at this scale. Since it will not require mechanical cooling, the energy consumption of the facility will be down a whopping 80 per cent compared to similar data centres. It also means less water is used compared to a traditional cooling tower.
"We factored in everything from minimising landfill and the impact on the environment during construction itself to using more efficient LED lighting and environmentally sourced paint. We are very proud to say we're involved in building one of the greenest data centres in the UK; it's a huge achievement," said Mark Roenigk, COO of Rackspace.
The Crawley centre will also comply with ASHRAE energy guidelines and is a response to what Rackspace sees as a growing demand for data storage in Europe.
