Data centers have many commonalities. Developers and operators tend to apply proven techniques and best practices to optimize performance and reliability. At the same time, each data center has unique characteristics that are affected by the physical layout of the building, the technologies deployed, and the facility’s operational requirements. Customizable components provide developers and operators with the flexibility to address specific needs.
Customizable is distinct from custom-built. Custom-built products are designed, engineered, and fabricated for a specific data center. Customizable products are ready-made according to common standards but have elements that can be altered as needed.
How Data Centers Came to Be Standardized
The data center industry experienced major growth in the late 1990s as organizations sought to take advantage of widespread Internet access and the dot-com revolution. That era saw a massive surge in data center construction to support web hosting, online services, and e-commerce platforms. It was followed by the development of cloud-based services and the construction of ever-larger facilities (hyperscale).
By the late 2000s, data center developers began incorporating industrialized construction concepts into their projects. Industrialized construction uses semi-standard designs and consistent processes to improve efficiency, accuracy, and quality. Developers could purchase materials and components in large quantities to ensure availability and control costs.
Many data center infrastructure solutions were productized, meaning they incorporated commonly required features as standard attributes. Developers could also purchase these solutions in large quantities with some assurance that they could meet the specifications of their data centers.
When Customized Products Are Required
While the industrialized construction approach helped fuel the growth of the data center industry, hyperscalers quickly realized that off-the-shelf IT solutions would not meet their requirements. Most developed their own standards to address their unique needs for efficiency, performance, and scalability. Custom designs feature optimized power delivery and cooling systems to minimize costs and increase energy efficiency. Some designs are workload-specific to meet the processing requirements of various services.
Customized IT solutions require customized data center infrastructure. Hyperscalers need racks, cabinets, and other infrastructure components that meet their specific design requirements and operational needs. Data center infrastructure must be able to handle massive scale and density, which is often beyond the capabilities of standard rack designs. They also require integrated cooling features, high-capacity power distribution systems, and monitoring and management capabilities.
AI and Customization
The rapid growth and adoption of AI has pushed the boundaries of legacy data center infrastructure. The solutions of yesterday are failing to meet the needs of tomorrow. Data center infrastructure manufacturers are scrambling to roll out product innovations that satisfy growing rack densities, cooling requirements, power delivery, and more. The largest hyperscalers are almost exclusively working with manufacturers to develop customized solutions for their specific environments.
Essentially, the industry is learning as it grows. As AI matures, these customizations will inevitably consolidate and become standardized to some degree and, therefore, more accessible to enterprise-level data centers, but, until then, it’s incumbent on data center manufacturers of all scales to think beyond the standardized designs of the past.
Modularity as a Competitive Advantage
While industry-wide conformance to broad product standardizations is no longer feasible, many data center operators are developing economies of scale without sacrificing business/application-specific customizations by exploring modular data centers. This strategy allows them to prefabricate specific components of their data center builds outside the facility at scale for rapid deployment across their network.
Supply chain restraints and explosive demand for next-gen solutions have necessitated advanced strategic planning. Time to deployment is a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace. The organizations that don’t pre-provision appropriate resources risk falling behind.
The Role of Customizable Solutions
Most standard enterprise data centers don’t need fully customized infrastructure solutions, but some may feel constrained by standardized products. That’s where customizable solutions come into play. Customizable solutions apply common standards but allow flexibility in how they are configured, enabling them to be adapted to the specific needs of the data center.
With customizable solutions, even data centers of modest size can buy in volume to gain the economies of scale associated with productization. Customizable solutions are also ideal for edge data centers and, as previously mentioned, are massively relevant in the rapidly evolving AI space, among other deployments with specialized requirements.
Examples of Common Customizations
- Critical Switch Gear Deployment - Electrical switchgear can be prepopulated in transportable containers that already have electrical output connections available, so that once the container arrives at the data center, pre-configured electrical connections are deployable into the building’s critical infrastructure, allowing shorter lead times, faster deployments, and can be rerouted to other data center sites as demand arises abruptly.
- Cooling System Type - There are numerous cooling strategies available to data center operators. Examples include cooling towers, computer room air conditioning units (CRAC), free cooling, liquid cooling, and chilled or air-side economizer equipment. They all have different advantages and disadvantages. Considerations include air quality, efficiency, and cost.
- Tolerance to Natural Disaster – Data centers must be customized based on the risks of their local area. For example, in tornado-prone regions, data centers must be designed to withstand tornadoes across the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale. Seismic activity is another common natural disaster that must be considered during construction and deployment.
- Disaster Recovery – Redundancy is a keyword in the data center industry. In the event of an emergency, data center operators must have a contingency plan to maintain uptime. What that looks like is different from company to company. Some organizations get by with a disaster recovery office, while others may build backup data centers designed to come online when disaster strikes. These spaces are typically customized to the company operating them.
Customized or Customizable? We’re Here to Help
Enconnex offers customized and customizable data center infrastructure solutions to meet our customers’ specific needs. We are proud of our longstanding relationships with some of the biggest hyperscalers in the industry and have custom-designed and engineered racks, cabinets, and other products to their exacting requirements. We manufacture our products at our ISO 9001-certified Reno, Nev., headquarters facility to ensure the highest standards in quality, workmanship, and reliability.
We’ve also applied the experience we’ve gained working with hyperscalers to develop an array of customizable products for our customers. For example, our InfiniRack Data Center Cabinet can be customized in more than a million ways and includes thoughtfully crafted features that help streamline deployment and ongoing management. We configure each InfiniRack according to your specifications and ship it quickly to meet the tightest project timelines. In addition, we offer fully customizable power whips, aisle containment solutions, and have access to a broad portfolio of cable pathway solutions.
Put our engineering expertise and dedication to flexibility, quality, and sustainability to work in your data center. Contact one of our specialists to discuss your requirements.
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