Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.The Scott Data Center is logged in and prepared to begin construction on an expansion and renovation plan that will make the Omaha center one of the most powerful and energy-efficient operations of its type in the Midlands.
The plan includes a renovation of 50,000 square feet of the operation's current 80,000-square-foot data center and a new 30,000-square-foot central power plant. The plant will boost energy efficiency and increase power density so the data center can power more racks of servers and computer equipment, while also keeping them cool and running smoothly.
The project, designed over the last year and funded by the Suzanne and Walter Scott Foundation, is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2012. The renovations to the existing data center will begin in the coming days, said Ken Moreano, executive director at the Scott Technology Center, where the data center is located.
Just last week, the Scott Data Center plan received Tier Three certification from the Uptime Institute, a New York-based firm that critiques and rates data centers around the world based on the operation's infrastructure, security and other factors. The Tier Three certification means that the data center can run constantly without ever needing downtime for maintenance or system upgrades, said Julian Kudritzki, a vice president at the Uptime Institute.
Now certified, the expanded data center will be the lone multitenant operation in Nebraska or Iowa and only the fifth in the United States to receive that rating. It also means more major businesses will employ the data center's services, Kudritzki said.
“This is absolutely a big deal,” Kudritzki said. “It's going to be a huge competitive differentiator.”
Multitenant data centers lease server space to numerous customers and businesses. Other area data centers, like Google's in Council Bluffs or Yahoo's in La Vista, support online traffic solely driven from those companies.
Moreano said the central power plant will increase energy efficiency by 34 percent from current levels.
That's important in the long run because energy use has steadily increased about 10 percent each year, a function of more companies using the data center, Moreano said.
“We think that's pretty substantial,” Moreano said. “We want to make sure that we can handle them now, but also support them by way of infrastructure well into the future.”
The renovations also will include a peering point where Internet providers can connect to swap or re-route online traffic. Think of it as a freeway interchange, only for the Internet. Most major cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas have peering hubs, so for Omaha to have one of its own is an important facet of the renovation, Moreano said.
Currently, the data center, located at Pine Street and Aksarben Drive near the University of Nebraska at Omaha's South Campus, serves as a primary data center for some companies, including multiple Fortune 500 corporations. It also is a co-location and disaster recovery operation for other companies, serving as a backup if a primary data center is knocked offline by a power outage, emergency or other problem.
The data center is secured by an 8-foot-tall fence and monitored by 80 high-resolution video cameras that pepper the Scott Technology Center campus and funnel relevant feeds to security guards. The walls encapsulating the data center are built to withstand the impact of a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling at 50 miles per hour. Additionally, scanners are used to prevent any unauthorized people from entering the data center.
Moreano hopes to expand collaborative relationships between new companies that become tenants at the data center and students at the Kiewit Institute and at UNO, much like they have with current customers like Interpublic, a global marketing and communications company.
Moreano declined to disclose the cost of the project.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1414, ross.boettcher@owh.com
twitter.com/rossboettcher
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
