Center complexities

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If you blink while driving by a Peak 10 data center, you’re apt to miss it.

In 10 Southeastern and Midwestern cities, all 23 of them are nondescript, boxy, re-enforced concrete buildings with minimal signage. Peak 10’s three-stage data center now under construction in north Charlotte will be no different.

Work began this spring on the first 10,000-square-foot component, with completion set for fall of this year. Being built on David Taylor Drive, the center is expected to be about 60,000 square feet and be completed in five to seven years.

“I’d say as far as percentage, we are about 20 percent complete right now,” said Sean Stichter, project manager with construction company Balfour Beatty. “The project is due to finish in early October, so we’re tracking pretty well on schedule.”

Charlotte-based Peak 10 was bought by a private equity fund for $400 million in 2010, giving it the highest valuation for a U.S. data center operator. Its first center in southwest Charlotte opened more than a decade ago.

The bland exterior doesn’t stem from Peak 10 looking to save money on construction. Rather, it’s part of the company’s strategy.

“The building is plain vanilla and unadulterated to keep a low profile. Aesthetics is a low property,” said John Carew, senior electrical engineer and project manager with RS&H, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based infrastructure and facilities consulting firm that works for Peak 10.

“But think of the purpose: They want to keep a low profile and support the IT infrastructure, not shock and awe,” he said.

Peak 10’s data centers house clients’ information technology servers. The demand for such centers has been growing, as even small companies are storing more data electronically and require backup systems.

“There will always be equipment, a physical presence,” said Brian Vandervort, Peak 10’s director of service delivery. “Servers need a place to live.”

The exterior of a Peak 10 data center may be unremarkable, but inside, it features sophisticated heating and air condition, mechanical and security systems.

The entrance to the area where servers are kept requires not only swiping a card and punching in a personal code but also the scanning of the visitor’s thumb. If the thumb is cold, access will be denied. That’s to deter would-be trespassers from hacking off someone else’s thumb to get into the building.

Some of Peak 10’s clients are industries like health care and financial services, industries for which federal agencies have security protocols, making building a data center like this complicated.

“A data center is made up of systems made not to fail,” said Nick Mari, a project manager with Balfour Beatty. “It is our responsibility to install, verify and validate them and test them to be sure they can’t go down.”

Because of the infrastructure and power needs, a data center can’t be opened just anywhere. Vandervort said the size and age of utility infrastructure, data connectivity, proximity to an interstate and the general security of the area are all considerations.

A Peak 10 data center features back-up power-supply systems. To that end, centers come equipped with a large generator outside. Enough fuel is stored on site to keep the center running for more than a day, and Peak 10 can get more fuel on a four-hour notice.

Peak 10 leases a structure from a landlord and then handles the upfitting. Beacon Partners is its landlord at the new Charlotte facility.

Balfour Beatty has had to rip out infrastructure systems so they can be replaced and the walls can be rebuilt. It’s the sixth center it has built for Peak 10, which won’t divulge construction costs. Construction crew size is running at about 75 workers.

There have been a lot of changes since Peak 10 opened its first center in 2000. A major one has been a focus on energy efficiency.

Vandervort said a 10,000-square-foot data center uses the same amount of electricity in a year as do 2,000 homes.

One reason for the high energy consumption is the need to keep the centers cool.

“The technology has made the equipment smaller, but it consumes more energy, creating higher power densities,” Vandervort said. “This means that more heat is being generated in less space. If it gets too hot, the equipment shuts down.”

Instead of using traditional air conditioning, data centers are kept cold using a system of chilled water pipes that loop under the floors.  A chiller outside of the structure keeps the water cold.

The system being installed in the new Charlotte center is 30 percent more efficient than those now in use, according to project officials.

Also, servers are grouped together so they can be accessed from a single aisle, which is kept even colder by heavy, plastic drapery strips. A continual blast of cold from the floor also lowers the temperature.

The center can also be operated remotely.

The demand for data centers is growing. RS&H’s Carew said the company’s data center business is projected to grow 20 percent each year for the next several years. Peak 10 is one of its largest data center clients.

Vandervort said some local governments are not always easy to work with when building a data center. For one, some are unfamiliar with the gas-based fire-suppression systems Peak 10 uses in lieu of water-based ones that could damage clients’ equipment.

“North Carolina has been fairly easy to work with, but it has been much more challenging to work in Tennessee,” he said.