A powerful new data center has come online at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, allowing the post-grad innovations university to undertake complex number-crunching, algorithm processing and video analysis without leaving the building.
The data center was built by the Asteros Group and conforms to the international standard known as TIA-942, meaning it is considered to have top-notch network architecture, storage and backup, safety features and power management, among other things.
“We had the non-trivial task of creating a data center that had maximum power with all the necessary engineering infrastructure and top-class equipment, but only a relatively small space to build it in – about 90 square meters,” said Asteros chief engineer Alexander Maykov.
“To achieve this we needed to design a high-density solution on the basis of APC [company] equipment, which allowed the installation of a data center with a power output of 550 kilowatts,” he added.
Engineers opted for a mix of Russian and foreign equipment. The data center takes up two rooms. The bigger of the two, measuring 72 square meters, hosts two 42U communications racks, internal air conditioning and power-distributing equipment. The room features a heat corridor that vents the data center during times of high load. The second room, 16.8 square meters, contains accumulator batteries, backup power systems and other electrical equipment.
Skoltech’s chief information officer Alexei Shirokikh said the center was essential for the university to realize its potential.
“Skoltech is an innovations environment, created by joining together research and educational processes to solve a wide spectrum of scientific, engineering and innovation tasks,” he noted.
“In the school’s infrastructure vast volumes of data are stored and processed, some of which could become genuine breakthrough innovations. Precisely because of that, the task of creating a new data center was priority No. 1 for us. With its help we have consolidated our computing resources, centralized the management of our IT infrastructure, and boosted its reliability, power and fail safety.”