Data centre has eye to future

Northpower's Deepak Veevasamy, IT network architect, does a final check inside a pre-fabricated portable data centre now located at Northpower, Whangarei. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Northpower has collaborated with Schneider Electric to design and construct the first pre-fabricated portable data centre of its kind in the Asia Pacific region.

The 20-foot data centre was designed to significantly increase availability and redundancy of internal IT systems.

Using the template created with Northpower, Schneider Electric has already been commissioned to construct a similar design in Australia.

Northpower spokesman Steve MacMillan said one of the key reasons for the data centre development was to minimise potential for disruption to customers or for the business.

"We now have the extra capacity to meet our present and future needs. Deepak (Veevasamy, co-designer with Schneider Electric of the data centre) has ensured we're much better prepared for any future broadband build and electrical management in Northland."

He added that the portable data centre was much cost effective than either constructing a purpose-designed building or installing a data centre of comparable capacity in an already existing building.

Northpower chairwoman Nikki Davies-Colley says the data centre is a superb addition to the Northpower business due to energy efficiency, greater security and lower operational costs.

"The complexity of this design and build created numerous challenges but the success of the project meant that when the container landed at Northpower's Whangarei head office, it was plugged in and instantly operational," Mrs Davies-Colley said.

"The facility also has provision for the future requirements of Ultra-Fast Broadband points of presence and could expand into co-location services for resellers - other companies storing their servers in the data centre."

Schneider Electric is a global specialist in energy management and automation.