Partners Build Cloud Data Centers Together

Background

Huawei partnered with Shanghai-based Fountain Data Solution, an industry leader in data center management and operations in China, to set up a highly flexible, cost-efficient, and secure data center for cloud services. Fountain Data Solution has been committed to becoming one of China’s leading high availability IT, Internet and Integrated Data Center (ISP/IDC) service providers, including Web applications and cloud computing services. To further expand the company’s business, Fountain Data Solution planned to build a cloud data center located at Zhoujiazui Road in the Yangpu District of Shanghai. The data center will be a 4-story building, covering an area of 6,500 square meters, of which 2,400 square meters will be used to store the equipment.

This next-generation data center will allow Fountain Data Solution to demonstrate its quality IT services and its capabilities for consolidating industry chains. The design would provide state-of-the-art services to Fountain Data Solution’s customers in a variety of industries, including high-end banks, insurance, securities, energy, manufacturing, and logistics. In addition, this data center intends to provide services including hosting, IT infrastructure management, service continuity management, disaster recovery, consulting, and Big Data cloud computing.

Challenges

Shanghai is one of the few international finance and transportation centers that brings together the world’s top-notch Information Communications Technology (ICT) companies. These companies urgently require an effective storage and security solution for their business-critical data and professional Operation and Maintenance (O&M) services. To provide a range of services for these companies, Fountain Data Solution was committed to its efforts in building the Yangpu cloud data center.

This need for excellence motivated Fountain Data Solution to partner with Huawei, a technology leader with extensive industry and R&D experience as well as expertise in developing end-to-end cloud data center solutions. In addition, to ensure successful initial construction and follow-up expansion, Fountain Data Solution required implementation in phases, simple deployment, uncomplicated delivery, and high scalability.

Fountain Data Solution also requires that the new data center provide the highest performance with minimum energy consumption, specifically with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of less than 1.6. Finally, the equipment facility must have an elegant appearance to reinforce Fountain Data Solution’s reputation as an industry-leading solutions provider.

Solution

Huawei and Fountain Data Solution began active communications in early June 2012. After interactive customer exchange sessions and meticulous analysis of customer requirements, Huawei offered an agile, high-performance cloud data center solution integrating professional consultation, planning and design, delivery, and maintenance services. Fountain Data Solution, impressed by Huawei’s innovative solution, selected Huawei to provide an end-to-end solution and to complete Phase I of data center construction. Huawei and Fountain Data collaborated on ideas and came to many agreements on ways to expand the intelligent energy management market with strategies, solutions, and technologies.

To apply industry best practices to the cloud data center, Huawei demonstrated its innovative development capabilities by designing a “SAFE” data center ─ Smart, Available, Flexible, and Efficient.

In Phase I, Huawei offered data center facilities covering everything from the equipment room, electric systems, Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), firefighting equipment, dynamic environment monitoring system, comprehensive cabling, cabinets, and hot aisle/cold aisle containment system. The initial phase of the project has the following key features:

Fast deployment
The modular equipment room uses components that are pre-configured and partly assembled in the factory, then quickly and efficiently assembled on-site. This ensures an 8 to 12 week deployment time, reducing construction time by up to 50 percent, and accelerating service roll outs. The modular equipment room increases site flexibility, and can be easily deployed on concrete grounds or Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) prevention floors, further expediting data center deployment.

High scalability
The modular equipment room design balances space and resources required for multiple subsystems such as power supply, air conditioning, and IT devices.

During Phase I, the equipment room was constructed and devices were installed to meet the project’s existing needs and planned service growth. This plan facilitates expansion with regards to space and also prevents excessive investments.

The equipment room is classified into several zones based on device power density to address on-going development trends for device centralization and virtualization. Resources are flexibly assigned and dispatched depending on the service application levels, minimizing Operating Expenses (OPEX).

Energy-efficiency
A highly efficient air conditioning system takes advantage of Huawei’s proprietary row-level air conditioning technology that precisely controls air temperature and direction to reduce energy consumption. This system also employs a hot aisle/cold aisle containment system separating hot and cold air which also dramatically reduces energy costs.

Advanced layout
Based on Huawei’s solution, the Fountain Data Solution Cloud Data Center is divided into three functional zones: Type-1, Type-2, and auxiliary functional zones. Each zone centralizes similar services and is completely isolated from the other zones. This model also prohibits maintenance personnel from entering the Type-1 function zone, which facilitates follow-up management operations and guarantees high security. In addition, Huawei can set up dedicated channels to facilitate both routine management and customer visits.

Benefits

Huawei’s joint partnership assures the Fountain Data Solution Cloud Data Center delivers:

High Return On Investment (ROI)
Upon completion, the cost-efficient, modular Yangpu Cloud Data Center provides high ROI. It is estimated that Fountain Data Solution will recover its investment in three years.

Leading efficiency and reliability
Huawei’s solution uses a dual-input mains power supply or one-channel mains and one-channel diesel. For redundancy, multiple air conditioners function at the same time to ensure service availability 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. These two methods bring about high reliability.

Low OPEX
Innovative technologies such as a water-cooled backplane, hot aisle/cold aisle containment system, and in-row cooling ensure high cooling efficiency and an admirably smaller PUE than that of traditional Integrated Data Centers. Pay-per-use electricity charges further provide cost savings.