Capgemini's new cloud data center gets closer to magic PUE number

You've got to love the one-up-man-ship going on in the data center world, as companies try to get closer to the magic number of 1 for power use effectiveness (PUE). That number is a measure of the energy fueling the cooling technology needed to run a particular facility's servers, storage and other It infrastructure. A perfect ratio would be 1, but most data centers today run closer to a 2. (As in it takes twice the energy to COOL the stuff you are running as it does to run the stuff itself.)

So, anyway, Capgemini is the latest giant technology services company to push the envelope, if you will. The company has opened a substantial Tier 3 facility that goes by the name "Merlin" in what is being described as a brownfield site in Swindon, England (which is outside of London). Capgemini is claiming a PUE rating of 1.08 for the data center, albeit that rating is "factory-tested" so we'll have to see what happens in practice. The facility is being prepped for Capgemini's growing portfolio of cloud services. It includes up to 60,000 square feet of technical floor capacity, broken up into 24 by 2,500 square-foot modules.

Among the practices and technology features that make this particular data center especially green:

• The ability to use free-air cooling pretty much all year; each module is equipped with an Air Optimiser climate controlling unit. The first stage is fresh air, the second stage uses evaporative cooling.
• Fully managed hot and cold air flows (the photo to the right represents one of the facility's fully contained cold aisles.
• The electricity consumption of the facility is estimated at roughly half a facility of comparable capacity; Merlin also will boast lower overall maintenance costs, according to the IT services giant.