Why is Scalability so Critical in Modern Data Center Infrastructure?
As data center managers know, customer needs are always changing. Expectations and requirements will continue to shift with new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), evolving security considerations, and innovations in power distribution, cooling and monitoring technologies.
Scalability is a key consideration for data centers. As workloads rise, facility engineers need to remember that data center upgrade projects must be built to meet the needs of tomorrow.
When making upgrades to facilities or even constructing new ones, data center managers need to design for modularity, allowing them to scale operations as demand increases. If data centers build to the capabilities required today, they will quickly find themselves conducting rework and further developments as technology changes. Data center managers should also preserve the ability to add additional racks or equipment within existing building infrastructure to scale with rapidly increasing demand.
The need for modularity applies to both facility and rack-level infrastructure. As cooling technology continues to improve, data centers may be able to fill empty space on racks with more equipment, but cabling and power distribution must then also be designed with a scalable architecture in mind. In addition to designing for modularity, data center managers need to constantly manage and monitor their infrastructure to assess where and when to upgrade systems. Users of data centers should be able to monitor power, cooling and other capabilities to ensure those systems meet their requirements.
Modularity has additional benefits outside of just scalability—using prefabricated and interchangeable technologies can help data centers maintain uptime and performance since critical components can be exchanged when service is necessary.
Our Problem-Solving Solutions
nVent offers optimized solutions for connecting and protecting mission critical data center and networking infrastructure. As a global leading solutions provider, we offer customers a comprehensive portfolio of adaptable, modular and scalable standard product platforms for networking, data center and communications applications.
Our smart enclosures, power distribution, cable management and liquid cooling solutions are designed with scalability and modularity in mind, and we put our engineering expertise to work to help our customers build for the future. Our liquid cooling portfolio is designed so that any major components can be swapped in and out to serve customers’ needs. For instance, our rear door heat exchangers can be connected to either our coolant distribution units or to facility water supplies, if such infrastructure exists. At the rack level, data center managers can therefore use the same rack manifolds whether they are using liquid-to-air technologies, cooling distribution units, facility liquid lines, or a combination. These systems can be reconfigured with ease as needs change.
Modularity is a critical component of designing future-ready data centers. As the needs of data center operators shift and evolve with changing technologies, nVent solutions, engineering expertise and service offerings can help data centers keep pace.