By Philbert Shih, theWHIR.com
Mar 24, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting companies – when successful – tend to grow. And when they do, they often face the challenge of fitting as much equipment as they can into the precious data center space at their disposal.
Such was the case for Data393 (data393.com), a Colorado-based Web host formed through a merger with Ventures Online and Huge Hosting and the acquisition of application service provider E-com Media Group. The union, completed in June of last year, created a service provider with shared, dedicated and VPS Web hosting, application hosting, managed services and colocation capabilities.
Data393 houses 850 servers in 46,000 square feet of data space. But after its expansion, the company soon found it was growing beyond its expectations, pushing its data center facility to its limits.
“As we started to grow, we rapidly consumed floor space,” says Steve Merkel, senior systems engineer for Data393. A large facility that the company thought would have enough room for the foreseeable future quickly began to fill. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that the acquired facilities ran on traditional DC power, a pressing problem since most prospective tenants, such as hosts, run on AC-powered systems.
Data393 faced the challenge of finding a way to optimize the space in its facilities. It had to find servers that not only took up less space, but ran cooler, faster and with lower failure rates ? all within a well-defined physical area. On top of that, it also had to find a way to avoid shelling out a crippling amount of cash to convert the facility from DC to AC power.
Rackable Systems (rackable.com) seemed the solution to all Data393′s issues, since its systems had the density needed and a DC-power option, enabling Data393 to continue using the DC power-based facilities it had acquired, says Merkel.
“When we came across Rackable and saw they had a DC option as well as a very dense rack solution, we put the two together and came up with something that really met our long-term business objectives,” says Merkel.
Density was a key factor, says Merkel, as the company was trying to make the most of every inch of its limited space.
Rackable’s servers are designed with a density that enables significant space savings, the company says, and Data393 takes full advantage.
“We gain some efficiencies both from how they configure their racks and how they’ve designed their solutions,” says Merkel. Data393 says it was able to save between $600 and $800 per square foot of data center space, and increased severs deployed in each cabinet from 24 to 80.
Data393 was also able to deploy quickly, with exact components specified in advance of delivery. “Their racks just rolled right in,” says Chris Leebelt, senior vice president of e-business solutions at Data393. “Setup time was simple and we were operating in no time at all.”
Most importantly, using DC-powered equipment has enabled Data393 to increase server reliability by about 20 percent. “It’s a very efficient power source,” says Merkel. He explains that by separating the rectification process (the conversion of AC to DC power) from the delivery of servers to the server room, the cooling process is optimized by cutting the heat load from the servers. With the thermal load shifted outside the server, there is lower power consumption and as a result, reduced power costs.
“Leveraging DC power technology enables even greater reliability, with the added benefit of up to 30 percent savings on power costs in direct-DC deployments,” says Colette LaForce, vice president of marketing for Rackable Systems.
Data393, which uses SWsoft’s (sw-soft.com) PEM to manage its data center infrastructure, has had such success that it plans to migrate its entire infrastructure to Rackable gear.
“The combination of higher density, superior thermal management, lower power consumption and easier serviceability can help lower total cost of ownership for Rackable Systems customers,” says LaForce.
