Sabey Data Centers News

Sabey Construction Leads Business Group To Contribute $12,000 For Veterans Memorial Park In Quincy, WA

Quincy, WA, Sept. 10, 2016 – Sabey Construction, Inc., the in-house construction arm of Sabey Corporation, together with a volunteer group of Washington State businesses today presented a check for $12,079 to the Quincy Chamber of Commerce on behalf of Veterans Memorial Park in Quincy.

Earlier this year, the Sabey-led business group partnered with local veterans organizations to voluntarily build and install major improvements at the park. Today’s donation is the amount of surplus funds that were unspent during the just completed construction project.

The completion of new construction will be commemorated in a formal, on-site ceremony tomorrow on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

John Sabey, President, Sabey Data Centers, said, “We are proud and delighted that the project was completed on time and substantially under budget. Today’s cash donation will go far toward the upkeep and continued beautification of the park.”

The park was dedicated in 2007, and since then the names of Quincy area residents who served in the armed forces filled to capacity the surfaces of the original concrete memorial walls. The new construction has expanded that capacity significantly with four new walls to hold the engraved tile nameplates of local area men and women who have served in past wars and are serving now. It is expected that 50 new nameplates will be added by this fall. Additional improvements to the park include new lighting, benches, sidewalks and landscaping.

The project was coordinated with George Washington Post 24 of the VFW, American Legion Post 183 and Amvets Post 777 – all based in Quincy. The triangular park, located at the intersections of Hwy 28 and 2nd and 3rd Avenues, S.E., occupies land donated by the City of Quincy. It was originally built, in large part, with funds provide by Yahoo!

Mark Owens, Quartermaster of George Washington Post 24 VFW, said, “The park is dedicated to the memories of those who sacrificed to secure our freedoms and keep America safe. Quincy area men and women steadfastly continue to serve in our armed forces, and they should always have a place of honor in Quincy.”

Quartermaster Owens added that the memorial is intended to recognize veterans who served with allied forces and subsequently settled in the Quincy area, as well as men and women who are presently serving in the military, including brand new inductees. He said, “We have a Canadian citizen who served with his native Canadian forces in World War II and then moved here.”

Sabey Construction acted as general contractor for the project, with architectural drawings provided by KDW Salas O’Brien/Brenda Ross; Ready Mix concrete from Central Washington Concrete; fabricated rebar from Moses Lake Steel Supply; excavation, form, pour and finish work by Wm. Winkler Co.; and electrical work by Holmes Electric. Additional cash donations were received from McKinstry Co., CPSI, Leslie & Campbell Roofing, Cochran Electric, Pacific Northwest Mechanical LLC, Performance Contracting Inc., Syska Hennessy, and Clean Sweep/Brian Worley.

Persons who would like to purchase a nameplate tile to honor a veteran or service member should contact the Quincy Chamber of Commerce, 119 F Street, P.O. Box 658, Quincy, WA 98848, for details. The phone number is 509-787-2140. Cost of each tile is $80. Arrangements can be made with the VFW to defray the cost for veterans’ families who cannot afford to pay on their own.

About Sabey Construction
Sabey Construction, Inc. (SCI) brings decades of construction experience to each project. Because we frequently build for own account, SCI maintains a full complement of in-house services that extends far beyond those normally available through general contractors. These include site research and acquisition, land reclamation, complete construction management, post-construction follow-through, and facilities planning or redevelopment.

SCI scales readily to meet construction challenges, excelling particularly at time-constrained projects while maintaining excellent quality. www.sabey.com

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Line-of-Sight Antenna Paves New Data Routes for NYC

By Scott Fulton III August 2, 2016

Almost a century ago, it was the very symbol of technology and ingenuity: the giant transmitter tower beaming signals into the heavens. The crown jewel of the Empire State Building has always been an antenna.

Today, we’ve renewed the word “wireless” into the common vernacular; no longer does it sound antiquated, like “microcomputer,” “Hayes modem,” or “MTV music video.” And in the latest signal that everything old is new again; the biggest news in New York City data centers this week may be the completion of a very large antenna.

Its apex extends to 560 feet over lower Manhattan, at the crest of what had been one of the city’s uglier properties, at 375 Pearl Street, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s still known to locals as the Verizon Building, and was once known as the One Brooklyn Bridge Plaza.

Today, it’s Intergate.Manhattan, complete with the funky re-spelling of “integrate” and the dot. And beginning this year, the limestone-clad tower is getting a resurfacing. Plus, its current principal owner, Sabey Data Center Properties, is taking full advantage of its nearly unobstructed location, erecting a 360-degree vantage point antenna, providing line-of-sight, wireless data center access to the boroughs, the financial district, and mid-town Manhattan.

In Sight, It Must Be Right

“As you look at the wireless market, and you look at Manhattan,” said Dan Meltzer, Sabey’s vice president for sales and leasing, speaking with Datacenter Knowledge, “you realize it’s a very small space. But with line-of-sight, you actually extend your market. So you’re able to hit Brooklyn, Queens — any area of Manhattan, north, south, east, and west. And if you have height, you can hit points in New Jersey along the Hudson River.”

Sabey has housed and managed data centers in the Intergate building for clients since the start of the decade. What the antenna adds — for many Manhattan customers, for the very first time — is an alternative mode of access for carrier-grade connectivity. Whichever wired carrier happens to serve a business on the island, will at some point connect with Verizon (the former Bell Atlantic, which had been NYNEX and New York Telephone Co. prior to that).

Among the antenna’s charter customers are: NuVisions, a provider of Wi-Fi hot spots throughout New York City; broadband ISP Windstream; Google Fiber competitor Brooklyn; and Transit Wireless, which provides free Wi-Fi service for the city’s subway system. Sabey gives these tenants the opportunity to house their data centers mere yards from the antenna.
This way, their own customers have a way to bypass — quite ironically — the service provided by the telco whose name still adorns the Intergate building.

Brooklyn Fiber, explained Sabey’s Director of Leasing George Panagiotou drives down the cost of broadband with lower-cost, gigabit access for businesses. It started out doing business not in Brooklyn itself but in the village of Red Hook, about an hour’s drive north on Broadway from lower Manhattan (on a good day). Sabey’s line-of-sight antenna will now open up new avenues for potential Brooklyn Fiber customers further south.

The Other Way ‘Round

While line-of-sight may not necessarily be customers’ principal means of broadband connectivity, Sabey’s tower gives them the option of a redundant or bypass connection, explained Panagiotou,. This way, Brooklyn Fiber and others can offer wireless ISP service for businesses that need more 9s on their SLAs.

“They eliminate what would be the cost of delivering fiber to individual buildings,” he told us, “where they will make agreements with landlords whose tenants are interested in getting high speed Internet bandwidth. They will put antennas on those buildings, and we’ll serve them from 375 Pearl Street. They’ll distribute that bandwidth to tenants inside the buildings, instead of trying to get one of the traditional carriers to pull in some fiber from the street — which would be unlikely, if the investment isn’t going to justify what kind of revenue they could generate from those types of buildings.”

In other words, just like early television transmitters changed the property values of business that were the first on the block to open their doors to viewers, line-of-sight connectivity could elevate the stature of business districts that suffer today from the logistical nightmares of obtaining high-bandwidth data service.

Many buildings in Manhattan can only be served by Verizon. And even when there are multiple providers for a property, explained Panagiotou, there are probably a handful of aggregation points — and potential points of failure — where the alternative providers connect with Verizon’s infrastructure.

“So even if you were to get more than one traditional fiber or copper service,” he said, “you’re still going to be hitting stuff that’s going to be in one manhole, one central office, or some other single point of failure. By going with a provider like Brooklyn Fiber or NuVisions, you can get wireless redundancy so that, if ConEd or someone else is down in the street, digging up sidewalks, and they accidentally rip out all the copper or fiber that’s going into one point of entry on the building. . . for customers who are truly mission-critical and want no chance of going down, they will be able to fail over to that wireless access from 375 Pearl Street.”

Of course, in the concrete jungle, not everyone can see this particular tower from where they stand. Some tenants, Panagiotou told us, have the means to triangulate a signal, relaying it from Intergate, around obstructions, and into receiving stations in Brooklyn.

Meltzer said that Sabey operates a meet-me room on the sixth floor of Intergate, where tenants have the option of connecting with the providers of their choice.

From here, Sabey is looking for opportunities to host temporary broadband access facilities for the city’s major events — conventions, sports, and outdoor gatherings. So far, said Meltzer, only a fraction of some 300 antenna positions have been staked out on the antenna — which may yet convert an old, grey box into the pearl of Manhattan.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2016/08/02/line-sight-antenna-paves-new-data-routes-nyc/

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Now Leasing Antenna Rights For Line-Of-Sight Connectivity at Intergate.Manhattan

The completion of a million-dollar superstructure atop 375 Pearl Street has attracted wireless providers of business continuity, backup, point-to-point and Internet Services.

New York, August 1, 2016 – Seattle-based Sabey Data Center Properties announced today the completion of a $1 million-dollar antenna superstructure atop Intergate.Manhattan, its 560-foot-tall facility at 375 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan.

The installation has already attracted Brooklyn Fiber, New York’s independent broadband ISP, which will offer point-to-point, antenna-to-antenna Internet connectivity to businesses and residences in Brooklyn. Other signed customers include Windstream and NuVisions.

John Sabey, President, Sabey Data Centers, said, “Our unobstructed, 360-degree vantage point atop 375 Pearl Street is an ideal location for enterprises that require wireless backup connectivity in the event of a fiber communications disruption, and ISPs such as Brooklyn Fiber that offer point-to-point service, as well as wireline connectivity.

“Also, in situations where cable and fiber optic infrastructure is unavailable or impractical to undertake, antenna-to-antenna connectivity from our rooftop is a viable solution.”

Sabey Data Centers is meeting an increasing demand for roof rights and roof access in Manhattan, where 360-degree views are at a premium. The rooftop at 375 Pearl Street offers line-of-sight north to midtown Manhattan; west to the data centers in New Jersey; east to all of Brooklyn; and south to other buildings in the Financial District.

A rooftop point of presence at Intergate.Manhattan also gives tenants immediate access to Sabey’s on-site fiber carriers, obviating the need to deploy additional, costly fiber connectivity. At present, the superstructure at 375 Pearl Street can support upwards of 300 antennas.

Mr. Sabey said, “The project is complete and our first customers are installing their equipment now.”

About Sabey Data Centers
With a portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space, Sabey Data Center Properties is one of the oldest and largest privately owned multi-tenant data center owner/developer/operators in the United States. Sabey specializes in scalable, custom-built solutions including data center ready shell space and fully turnkey data centers managed by Sabey’s award-winning critical environment staff. Consistently recognized for its reputation for operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey is proud to provide data center services to many of the world’s top financial, technology and healthcare companies. www.sabey.com

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Sabey Data Centers Selects USA Fiber As Its First Carrier At Intergate.Ashburn In Virginia


Ashburn, VA, July 5th, 2016 – Sabey Data Centers announced today that it has selected USA Fiber, the Sarasota, FL-based provider of dark fiber networks, as its first fiber optic telecommunications carrier at Intergate.Ashburn, Sabey’s new, 900,000-square-foot data center campus now under construction in the heart of Northern Virginia’s data center corridor.

Seattle, WA-based Sabey, one of the largest privately-owned data center owners, operators and developers in the United States, also has set a goal of having at least 10 active carriers ready to serve its customers when Intergate.Ashburn completes its commissioning process, scheduled for later this year.

Rob Rockwood, Senior Vice President, Eastern Region, Sabey Data Centers, said, “We have a wealth of experience in bringing new carriers into our buildings. Our tenants will be operating in a region where 70% of the world’s Internet traffic crosses every day. We are asking all of our potential carriers to agree to be built in and operational by December 1, 2016. Pre-leasing is currently underway at Intergate.Ashburn.”

USA Fiber specializes in dark fiber networks, private infrastructure dedicated solely for the use of the customer. USA Fiber engineers, builds and manages dark fiber networks coast to coast within the U.S. and its team has deployed more than 10,000 route miles.

Daniel Meltzer, Sabey Data Centers Vice President of Sales & Leasing, said, “USA Fiber’s Ashburn Ring links all of the key data centers, cloud computing platforms and high technology companies in the market. In the near future, its Ashburn Express route will connect Ashburn directly with Baltimore, MD, bypassing Washington, D.C. and its inherent latency and network risks. At present, all other major carriers’ routes cross into Washington, D.C.”

At Intergate.Ashburn, carriers will use three separate and discrete input trunks from the street; two routes from Waxpool Rd. and one from Red Rum Dr. Within the data center there will be two separate communications equipment rooms and two separate meet me rooms for carrier interconnectivity.

Located a short distance from Dulles International Airport, Intergate.Ashburn will significantly expand Sabey’s national data center footprint and provide direct proximity to all network exchanges in the region.

The campus will offer Sabey’s turnkey, hybrid and powered shell data center products in both multi and single-tenant layouts. Build to suit is also available. Building C, the first phase, is approximately 140,000 square feet with 7.2 MW of IT power. The site will be served with more than 70 megawatts of power, accommodating tenants with varying design challenges and power requirements.

Mr. Rockwood commented, “Ashburn is another critical node in the array of data centers that Sabey is assembling to serve its customer base. With our large facilities in the New York City and Washington, D.C. metro areas, we are significantly enhancing our strategic presence and capacity as a national provider of data centers.”

About Sabey Data Centers
With a portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space, Sabey Data Center Properties is one of the oldest and largest privately owned multi-tenant data center owner/developer/operators in the United States. Sabey specializes in scalable, custom-built solutions including data center ready shell space and fully turnkey data centers managed by Sabey’s award-winning critical environment staff. Consistently recognized for its reputation for operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey is proud to provide data center services to many of the world’s top financial, technology and healthcare companies. www.sabey.com

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Sabey Data Centers Forms Strategic Alliance with Canada’s Q9

June 28, 2016 NEW YORK – Sabey Data Centers and Toronto-based Q9 announced jointly today that they have formed a strategic sales alliance, effectively creating an international offering of data center locations and services that spans the U.S. and Canada from coast to coast.

Beginning today, Sabey Data Centers will market to its customer base and prospects Q9’s colocation and wholesale data center space at multiple facilities in Toronto, Ontario; Calgary, Alberta; and Kamloops, British Columbia.
Likewise, Q9 will market Sabey’s portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space in Washington State, Virginia and New York City to its customers and prospects.

John Sabey, President, Sabey Data Centers, said, “Our partnership with Q9 allows data center customers and prospects to have immediate access to resources in major technology markets in the U.S. and Canada. We believe that there will be strong demand from the financial services and energy sectors, especially with oil and gas producers who operate in both countries. We are eagerly looking forward to working with Canada’s leading data center company.”

Karen Sheriff, CEO of Q9, said, “We see an immense amount of synergy between ourselves and Sabey. Our customers are now able to leverage the same high quality mission critical facilities North and South of the US/Canadian border.”

Under the alliance agreement, Sabey and Q9 will train their respective sales teams to focus on the new, combined offering of data centers and carrier networks located in the U.S. and Canada. Now, both companies can address U.S.-based customer needs in Canada, and vice versa.

Daniel Meltzer, Vice President of Channel Sales and Marketing, Sabey Data Centers, said, “I believe that many Canadian enterprises on the Globe & Mail “Top 1000” list would be interested in exploring a fully integrated offering of data center space and carrier neutral network connectivity bridging multiple data center sites in major U.S. and Canadian markets.”

About Sabey Data Centers
With a portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space, Sabey Data Center Properties is one of the oldest and largest privately owned multi-tenant data center owner/developer/ operators in the United States. Sabey specializes in scalable, custom-built solutions including data center ready shell space and fully turnkey data centers managed by Sabey’s award-winning critical environment operations team. Consistently recognized for its reputation for operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey boasts one of the most sterling tenant rosters in the industry. .

About Q9
Q9 Networks Inc. is Canada’s largest provider of outsourced data centre infrastructure for organizations with mission-critical IT operations. Q9’s data centres and network are backed by an industry leading SLA that guarantees 100 per cent network and power availability. Q9 services, including: co-location, private cloud, managed hosting and interconnect service offerings, to a global ecosystem, allow clients to optimize their IT infrastructure. Q9 is owned by an investor group comprising Canada’s largest communications company, BCE Inc., and some of the largest and most experienced North American pension and private equity funds, including: Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC. www.q9.com

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Sabey Data Centers Starts Intergate.Ashburn Construction in Virginia

Ashburn, VA, May 24, 2016 – Seattle-based Sabey Data Center Properties announced today the construction start of Intergate.Ashburn, its approximately 900,000-square-foot data center campus on 38 acres of raw land it acquired in the heart of Northern Virginia’s data center corridor.

Seattle, WA-based Sabey, one of the largest privately-owned data center owners, operators and developers in the United States, will bring its in-house construction expertise to the project with Sabey Construction, Inc. (SCI) acting as general contractor.

Pre-leasing at Intergate. Ashburn is underway, with an expected, fast-tracked delivery date of 4th Quarter, 2016.
Located a short distance from Dulles International Airport, Intergate.Ashburn will significantly expand Sabey’s national data center footprint and provide direct proximity to all network exchanges in the region.

The campus will offer Sabey’s turnkey, hybrid and powered shell data center products in both multi and single-tenant layouts. Build to suit is also available. Building C, the first phase, is approximately 140,000 square feet with 7.2 MW of IT power. The site will be served with more than 70 megawatts of power, accommodating tenants with varying design challenges and power requirements.

The campus shares its design with Sabey’s Intergate.Quincy, a 520,000-square-foot campus in Central Washington State. The fundamental design was perfected while developing the well-received Intergate.Columbia, also in Central Washington. Intergate.Columbia’s 438,000 square feet were completed by SCI in December 2008 after only nine months of construction. The project is fully leased to four investment grade tenants.

Rob Rockwood, Senior Vice President, Eastern Region, directs Sabey Data Centers’ expansion on the East Coast. He will supervise the firm’s business growth in the eastern U.S. as it continues to attract data center customers and office tenants to its million-square-foot Intergate.Manhattan data center at 375 Pearl Street in New York City and begins its pre-leasing initiative in northern Virginia.

Mr. Rockwood said, “Ashburn is another critical node in the array of data centers that Sabey is assembling to serve its customer base. With our large facilities in the New York City and Washington, D.C. metro areas, we are significantly enhancing our strategic presence and capacity as a national provider of data centers.”
He added, “We are excited to expand into one of the most dynamic data center markets in the world. Ashburn is a prime location that delivers many of the qualities our clients are looking for.”

John Sabey, President of Sabey Data Centers said, “Rob has an impressive scope of business and technical knowledge. He has deep experience with data centers and understands solution based selling to an educated customer base. He has experience within the New York market and he possesses specific knowledge and experience in the Washington, D.C. region, gained while serving as Senior Vice President and General Manager of CoreSite, LLC. At CoreSite until 2014, Rob was involved with virtually every aspect of data center development and management since shortly after the company’s founding in 2001.”

Jeff Kanne, President and CEO of National Real Estate Advisors, which is a major investor in Sabey through a real estate fund, said: “We are highly supportive of Sabey’s expansion strategy, which is primed to meet the escalating demand of data storage space by leading corporations across the U.S.”

Located within the Dulles Technology Corridor, Ashburn, VA, is a magnet for high tech businesses and data center providers supporting both commercial and government enterprises. Northern Virginia is recognized as the second largest data center market on the East Coast after the New York metro market and is home to more than three million square feet of data center facilities. Sabey expects to attract tenants from the government, social media and health care sectors, as well as content and cloud service providers.

Sabey Construction Team for Intergate.Ashburn:
General Contractor Sabey Construction, Inc
Architecture Sabey Architecture & Callison Architecture
MEP/FP Engineering McKinstry Company & CCG Facilities Integration
Electrical Engineering Lane, Coburn & Associates
Structural Engineering Engineers Northwest
Permitting Consultant Dewberry

About Sabey Data Centers
With a portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space, Sabey Data Center Properties is one of the oldest and largest privately owned multi-tenant data center owner/developer/operators in the United States. Sabey specializes in scalable, custom-built solutions including data center ready shell space and fully turnkey data centers managed by Sabey’s award-winning critical environment staff. Consistently recognized for its reputation for operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey provides data center services to many of the world’s top financial, technology and healthcare companies. National Real Estate Advisors on behalf of its open-end, commingled fund holds a minority stake in Sabey.

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Brooklyn Fiber, New York’s Low Cost Broadband ISP, Establishes Its Presence at Sabey’s Intergate.Manhattan Data Center

New York, March 3, 2016 – Sabey Data Centers, one of the nation’s largest privately-owned multi-tenant data center owners and developers, announced today that Brooklyn Fiber, New York’s independent broadband ISP, will significantly expand its network resources by establishing a point of presence at Intergate.Manhattan, 375 Pearl Street.

John Sabey, President, Sabey Data Centers, said, “We are delighted to welcome Brooklyn Fiber to 375 Pearl Street. Their POP will enable them to access all of the carrier networks and Internet Exchanges at Intergate.Manhattan. This is a capability that was not available to Brooklyn Fiber during their start-up phase in Brooklyn. We’re proud to help grow this young company.”

Eric Veksler, CEO, Brooklyn Fiber, said, “Our goal is to provide equal access to quality, high-speed broadband for all. To that end, there are very few buildings that can disperse the Internet to all of New York City. We chose 375 Pearl Street for that purpose. We were also impressed with Intergate.Manhattan’s government-grade infrastructure, its mission critical systems and resiliency.”

Brooklyn Fiber offers both wireline and point-to-point wireless broadband connectivity to its residential and business customers. For example the ISP, with their highly disruptive business model, was the first to offer symmetrical gigabit service to small and medium sized businesses at affordable rates with no contract, no install fees and no termination fees.

Brooklyn Fiber’s gigabit broadband service is 20 times faster than existing download speeds in New York City, which average around 52 mbps. At present in New York City, gigabit service is rarely available, and broadband speeds higher than 300 megabits per second are highly uncommon. Brooklyn Fiber, in partnership with Sabey Data Centers and Integrate.Manhattan, is looking to change all that.

About Sabey Data Center Properties
With a portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space, Sabey Data Center Properties is one of the oldest and largest privately owned multi-tenant data center owner/developer/operators in the United States. Sabey specializes in scalable, custom-built solutions including data center ready shell space and fully turnkey data centers managed by Sabey’s award-winning critical environment staff. Consistently recognized for its reputation for operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey is proud to provide data center services to many of the world’s top financial, technology and healthcare companies. www.sabeydatacenters.com.

About Brooklyn Fiber
Launched in 2011 as much out of frustration as necessity, Brooklyn Fiber is an independent internet service provider operating out of Red Hook, Brooklyn. From day one our stated goal has been to provide business and residential consumers a choice when it comes to their broadband service provider. We do not have install fees, termination fees or ask our customers to sign a contract. We do not believe in bill creep or choking service around peak times on our network. We are and will remain net neutral. To find out more about Brooklyn fiber please visit www.bkfiber.com.

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Iron Mountain Joins Obama’s Data Center Energy Challenge

Iron Mountain, the nearly 70-year-old “information management” company that grew out of a big early 20thcentury underground mushroom growing operation, has joined a White House program created to push companies and government agencies to improve their data center energy efficiency.

President Barack Obama’s administration rolled out the Better Buildings Initiative in parallel with its clean energy investment program in 2011. The Better Buildings Challenge, one part of the initiative, called on companies and agencies to make specific energy efficiency improvement commitments for their facilities in return for access to some technical assistance from the government, shared best practices, and, of course, good publicity.

So far, Boston-based Iron Mountain is one of 11 private-sector data center operators to have accepted the challenge, pledging to reduce energy intensity of eight of its data centers by 20 percent in 10 years. The others are eBay, Facebook, Intel, Intuit, Home Depot, Staples, and Schneider Electric, as well as data center providers Digital Realty Trust, CoreSite Realty, and Sabey Data Centers.

Energy intensity is a metric that’s different from PUE, or Power Usage Effectiveness, the most popular data center efficiency metric. PUE is designed to measure how efficiently supporting data center infrastructure as a whole delivers energy to IT equipment. Energy intensity allows the operator to measure efficiency of each component subsystem, such as power equipment, cooling equipment, IT equipment, or, if necessary, the entire data center. It focuses on how much useful work a system achieves using energy it receives.

At the Data Center World Global conference in Las Vegas next month, Iron Mountain VP of data centers Chris Bair, Intel data center architect John Musilli, and Department of Energy staff scientist and engineer Dale Sartor will talk about the role of the government in data center energy efficiency and explain the ins and outs of the Better Buildings Challenge.

The 20 percent reduction in energy intensity across the eight Iron Mountain data centers amounts to 8.75MW total. In other words, the company has pledged to use 8.75MW less power to do the same amount of work it does now.

Iron Mountain hasn’t provided much detail about how exactly it is planning to achieve the improvements. In an email, a spokesperson said the company would use “geothermal cooling and infrastructure innovations, including air and water-side economization,” as well as better airflow containment.

The data centers in question are in Boston; Kansas City, Missouri; and just outside of Pittsburgh. The latter is Iron Mountain’s famous data center inside a limestone cave in Boyers, Pennsylvania.

Caves play a big role in the company’s history. Iron Mountain founder Herman Knaust was a mushroom grower and seller in early 20th century and bought a cave in New York State in the 1930s to expand his growing facilities, giving it the name Iron Mountain. The mushroom business eventually dried up, and during the Cold War Knaust pivoted to use company facilities as secure underground storage for corporate documents to protect them from destruction by the Bomb.

Today, Iron Mountain’s core business is still providing secure storage facilities for both companies and government agencies, except a lot of the information it stores now comes in digital form.

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Sabey And McKinstry Announce U.S. Patent Of Mobile Commissioning Assistant For Data Centers

The Mobile Commissioning Assistant will obsolete the legacy use of costly load banks and rack-mounted fan systems.
Sabey Data Centers and McKinstry have jointly announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent for Sabey’s new and innovative Mobile Commissioning Assistant.
The new cart-mounted, portable apparatus is designed to replace a costly legacy testing methodology that employs heat-generating load banks and separate fan units to simulate the heat density of a full server load and test the capacity of air-handling systems within a data center.

The device allows data center developers to test both power and airflow in data centers that use hot aisle containment. It provides a real-life commissioning environment in a manner that simple load banks cannot attain.
Invented by John Sasser, Sabey Data Centers’ vice president of operations and built by McKinstry, the Mobile Commissioning Assistant will be produced and marketed under a business agreement with McKinstry. Both companies are based in Seattle. Interested parties may purchase the devices from Sabey’s partner, McKinstry.

John Sabey, president, Sabey Data Centers, said, “Cooling systems in data centers protect against equipment failure and significant revenue loss. Testing the capacity of these systems is a critical final step before the servers go live. But most data center operators rely on unwieldy load bank heaters that don’t simulate actual operating conditions. Our Mobile Commissioning Assistant uses a heating unit, a fan and an adjustable duct output to simulate both the thermal load and the airflow of a fully-operational data center with a hot-aisle containment system.”

“Data center capacity is typically described in terms of kilowatts, or kW. In other words, how many kilowatts of computing load the power systems can support. Electrically this makes sense in a system that has to support a certain number of kW. Mechanically, however, it’s not just the kW that is relevant, but also the airflow, measured in cubic feet/minute (CFM). Traditional load banks don’t adequately test airflow. You may leave a commissioning event thinking the systems work as designed, only to find later that there are airflow deficiencies,” Sasser said.

Each Mobile Commissioning Assistant produces 100kW of heat and pulls about 16,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of airflow, putting enough airflow into the room to simulate a 20° temperature differential between inlet (cooled air) temperature to the servers and exhaust air heated by the servers.

“For example, if there is a designed 300,000 CFM in the server room, in addition to supplying the heat, we will pull 300,000 CFM with about 18 Mobile Commissioning Assistant carts and then see if the air handlers can keep up, and the back-up uninterruptable power supply (UPS) units and generators can do what they were designed to do. This represents a much more realistic test and is today part of our standard commissioning process,” Sasser said.

“The Mobile Commissioning Assistant will pay for itself after only three commissioning event uses, compared to renting other commercially available equipment,” said Thomas Tellefson, McKinstry business development director.” It will accurately test the capacity of your cooling systems, thereby preventing catastrophic equipment failure. It will also allow the data center operator to avoid the inconvenience of renting testing equipment that really doesn’t test what the operator actually needs. The Mobile Commissioning Assistant is not only very useful in new construction, but in recommissioning facilities as well.”

“Servers don’t just emit heat. They also create airflow patterns throughout the data center. The Mobile Commissioning Assistant tests the cooling system’s capacity to handle this air pressure.” Tellefson added.

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Made in Seattle: New device speeds up data center openings

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded a patent to two Seattle-area companies for a machine used in the commissioning of data centers.

Sabey Data Centers and McKinstry got the patent for Sabey’s new “mobile commissioning assistant,” the companies said Monday. The assistant is a cart-mounted device that data center operators can use to test the power and airflow in data centers before launching operations.

A center operator has to keep the facility at the right temperature to protect against equipment failure. Testing the power and airflow is a key final step in the commissioning of a data center, which is full of computers that generate enormous amounts of heat while they run.

Cooling the facilities is a big challenge, though some, including McKinstry, have developed some creative solutions. The company is working with Amazon to heat the Seattle retailer’s new skyscrapers with the leftover heat from McKinstry’s nearby data centers.

Microsoft just developed a data center that can be immersed in water to keep it cool.

Still, most data centers must find ways to make sure the facilities are properly equipped before they turn on all the machines.

The standard way of testing the power and airflow through data centers relies on load bank heaters and separate fans. This equipment can be unwieldy and often has to be rented.

The new device allows developers to test both power and airflow. Sabey and McKinstry officials said this provides a more realistic environment in a way that load banks and separate fans cannot.

The new machine will speed up the commissioning process, according to the companies.

John Sasser, Sabey Data Center vice president of operations, invented the commissioning assistant, which design-building company McKinstry is making and marketing.

The cost of the assistant ranges from $20,000 to $25,000 and depends on the quantity ordered, according to a McKinstry spokesperson, who added that to date 20 units have been sold.

McKinstry Business Development Director Thomas Tellefson said the device will pay for itself after three uses.

 

Marc Stiles Staff Writer Puget Sound Business Journal

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