IBM Tackles Data Center Power And Cooling Challenges

IBM Site and Facilities Services Unit Deploys New Technology for the Data Center

IBM, a global services provider, today introduced new service products to help customers combat energy related crises in their data centers. The service products provide end-to-end capabilities for customers, from identifying requirements, current capabilities and capacities to defining the best options for data centers and other specialized facilities, including clean rooms and green or intelligent buildings.

The service products will be available from IBM’s Site and Facilities Services unit and represent the latest step in IBM’s strategy to deliver traditional labor-based technology services in a manner more similar to the delivery of technology products.

IBM is today introducing five new service products:
• High Density Computing Readiness Assessment − assists customers to gauge their ability to support high density computing, identify the potential gaps that could jeopardize continuous operations, and develop a plan to resolve identified problems.
• Thermal Analysis for High Density Computing – identifies and resolves existing and potential heat-related issues that are likely to create outages in existing data centers, and provides options for power savings and future expansion.
• Integrated Rack Solution for High Density Computing – helps customers design, deploy and manage resilient, flexible racking solutions to take advantage of new technologies within new and existing environments.
• Data Center Global Consolidation and Relocation Enablement – provides evaluation and plans to help customers save money by consolidating and relocating data centers around the globe by leveraging local IBM Site and Facilities expertise and leading global practices.
• Scalable Modular Data Center for Small and Medium-sized Businesses – enables customers to install a new data center quickly, using modular building blocks. The capability can be installed in nearly any working environment and provides power, cooling, security and monitoring for a turnkey data center environment.

“IBM’s Site and Facilities Services team designed and installed a state-of-the-art data center for our rapidly growing business,” said Rick Siner, director of technical services at Priority Health, a nationally recognized health plan company based in Michigan. “We had access to the exact level of resources that we needed, and now, we have the capacity and infrastructure in place to support future growth, on demand.”

IBM draws on the expertise of more than 450 Site and Facilities experts worldwide, who have designed and built more than 30 million square feet (2.8 million square meters) of data center raised floor for its customers and more than 400 data centers in IBM’s own facilities worldwide.

IBM’s Site and Facilities Services unit delivers services in four areas:
• Data Center and Facilities Strategy Services – identifies data center requirements, current capabilities and capacities and defines eco-friendly and high resiliency options.
• IT Facilities Assessment, Design and Construction Services – builds new or helps to optimize existing datacenters.
• IT Facilities Consolidation and Relocation Services – helps leverage customer savings and redundancy globally.
• Specialized Facilities Services – provides design and building of intelligent and green buildings, state-of-the-art clean rooms, and trading floors.

“CIOs are facing a power and cooling crisis in their data centers,” said Steven Sams, vice president, IBM Site and Facilities Services. “Based on our extensive customer engagements, many data center facilities need to expand, renovate or relocate to meet capacity and operational needs. IBM has a global team of Site and Facilities Services experts in place to help customers assess their risk, determine a path to success, and implement an optimal solution.”