A Look Inside the Vegas SuperNAP

Eight hundred racks is a lot of servers. For most data centers, having orders for 800 racks before a facility even opens would create a capacity problem. But not for the SuperNAP, 407,000 square-foot data center in Las Vegas built by Switch Communications Inc.

When the first phase of the SuperNAP opens on Sept. 1, it will be one of the world’s most unique data centers, with the ability to cool racks exceeding 20kW of power load. When the facility is completed, it will cost more than $300 million and be able to host 7,000 customer servers.

The SuperNAP will have no raised floor, no computer room air conditioning units (CRACs) inside the data center, and no use of liquid cooling

A Look Inside the Vegas SuperNAP (Part 2)

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The dry Vegas climate is also critical to the efficiency of his facilities cooling operations. “You can really efficiently cool very dry air,” said Roy. “It’s hard to create efficient cooling in places where it truly human. And blending hot and cold air is ridiculous.”

So is Switch a unique, location-specific opportunity? Or can others apply parts of these approaches to improve high density data center design? Roy says Switch has filed 26 patents covering the innovations in its Las Vegas operations.

The company’s T-SCIF design builds upon several existing approaches, combining a slab floor and overhead cooling (a design option seen at Equinix facilities) with complete hot-air containment and a ceiling plenum for hot air return (similar in concept to Oracle’s design of its Austin data center). Switch’s design combines the best of both those approaches, and adds its own refinements. In NAP4, the ceiling plenum returns air outside the data center into a “heat aisle” between server rooms. The CRAC units are inserted into openings in the wall, but turned backwards so they draw air from the heat aisle, cool it and return it into the server area.

“We contain all the heat from day one,” said Roy. “Heat is 100 percent contained and processed into heat ceilings. Cold air is dropped past all 42U servers. We’ve tested and proven this by thermal imaging. The size on the (cold air) duct work can support 24kW of CFM for each rack. It’s completely modular and can be adjusted to suit lower density requirements.”

Cooling the SuperNAP: A Look at WDMD

The cooling for the huge SuperNAP data center in Las Vegas is provided by unique custom cooling units designed by the facility’s operator, Switch Communications. Known as WDMD (short for Wattage Density Modular Design), these are located outside the building, a different approach than the computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units. In this video, Switch CEO Rob Roy provides a closer look at the WDMD, which has four coils to provide difference cooling options in different weather conditions, and explains how they will be used at the SuperNAP. This video runs about four minutes.

For more news about the SuperNAP, visit our Switch Communications channel. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

1,500 Watts A Square Foot? A Look at TSCIF

Switch Communications says it is successfully cooling a section of its Las Vegas data center running at nearly 1,500 watts per square foot using air cooling. How are they accomplishing this?

The key to Switch’s high-density cooling is a design known as Thermal Separate Compartment in Facility (TSCIF), according to company co-founder Rob Roy. The ingredients in this approach include high-capacity AC units placed outside the data center area, and a tightly integrated hot aisle containment system for the racks. Here’s an overview:

• The cabinets are set on a slab, with no raised floor.
• Chilled air is delivered into the cold aisle near the ceiling rather than through the floor, and enters the cabinets through the front.
• Each cabinet fits into a slot in the TSCIF unit, which encapsulates the rear and sides of each cabinet, while the open front extends beyond the enclosure.
• The hot aisle containment system delivers waste heat back into the ceiling plenum, where it can be returned to the chiller.

Some photos of the TSCIF system can be seen here, and more images and diagrams are available on the Switch web site. A number of data center providers forego a raised floor for overhead cooling, most notably Equinix (EQIX). Heat containment systems are also becoming more widely used.

Switch says the combination of those techniques, along with custom cooling equipment, enables it to handle unusually high power and heat loads. Roy says the data center cold aisle is maintained at 68 degrees, while the temperature in the hot aisle reaches well above 100 degrees, creating a heat differential of nearly 40 degrees.

The Vegas SuperNAP: A Data Center Revolution?

Switch Communications’ SuperNAP, a 400,000 square foot data center under construction in Las Vegas, is a conversation starter. The facility’s operators say the $350 million facility will be the most advanced data center yet, supporting power loads exceeding 1,500 watts per square foot using only air cooling.

Rob Roy, co-founder of Switch Communications, says his company is the best-kept secret in the data center industry. After operating for eight years in stealth mode, serving a client base of military government and military and government customers and large Internet companies, the SuperNAP represents a coming out party for Switch and the data center technologies it has developed.

After years of media silence, Roy has begun discussing Switch’s operations and ambitions for the SuperNAP. The first mention of the SuperNAP leaked out May 5 on the blog for Silverback Migration Solutions, a Switch customer. This past weekend Roy was profiled in The Register, which also received a tour of one of Switch Communications’ five existing Las Vegas data centers. There’s also now a company website, providing information about Switch’s operations and a video preview of the SuperNAP.

We’ve spoken recently with Roy, who was enthusiastic about the data center technologies developed by Switch, and dismissive of those in the industry who might view his claims as improbable. “This is an industry of naysayers,” Roy said.

Roy says Switch operates a room in one of its data centers with cabinets for a name-brand customer running at 1,462 watts per square foot. Roy predicts that the SuperNAP will also be able to support customer power loads of 1,500 watts per square foot.