In April 2011, IIJ began operations at the Matsue Data Center Park (“Matsue DCP”) that had been built in Shimane prefecture with theconcept of integrating facilities and IT. Electrical and cooling equipment are installed inside conventional building-type data centers toprovide an optimal environment for IT equipment at the time of construction. However, the life cycles of the equipment in a data center
vary widely, at 30 to 50 years for the building, 10 to 20 years for electrical and cooling equipment, and 2 to 5 years for IT equipment. Thisleads to issues such as not being able to keep up with advances in IT equipment or supply the necessary power or cooling even though
there is enough space. At Matsue DCP these issues were resolved by modularizing IT equipment, electrical equipment, and coolingequipment, making it possible to replace or supplement equipment that has become obsolescent. Because Matsue DCP may reachits maximum capacity of 24 containers in 2012, we are currently working on designs for another park. For our next-generation park weplan to revise our approach to electrical equipment, in addition to making improvements to the “IZmo”*1 IT modules that integrate theIT equipment, buildings, racks, and fire extinguishing equipment we currently operate, as well as the outside-air cooling modules thatprovide significant power savings.

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Internet Topics: Energy-Saving Technology Required for Data Centers

Japan has largely been dependent on nuclear energy for electricity. But since the Great East Japan Earthquake circumstances surrounding
nuclear power have changed significantly, and this impact is being felt in tangible ways such as increased electric power rates. For datacenters that consume large amounts of electricity this is an extremely serious issue that will shake the foundations of our business, so
we are faced with the need to drastically revise our power infrastructure. This means it will be necessary to promote the integration of ITwith both the narrower category of data center facilities and the broader category of facilities that include power plants and grids. It also
indicates that the time has come to rethink our approach in anticipation of the easing of power regulations and the spread of smart gridsthat are likely to occur in the future.
For this reason IIJ is planning proof-of-concept tests*2 involving data center efficiency technology and smart grids under the following
three themes:
1. Reducing Power Consumption
At Matsue DCP we have reduced power consumption substantially by using outside-air cooling. However, if we could also cool using
outside air during the summer season when outdoor compressor units (chillers) are currently used, it would improve PUE (PowerUsage Effectiveness) from around 1.2 to around 1.1. To this end, we will develop modules for all outside-air operation and operate ITequipment that is resistant to high temperatures for one year to confirm stable operation and energy savings. We expect this will cut
power consumption, reduce investment costs for outdoor compressor units, and also lower base power rates by keeping peak power
consumption down during the summer season.
2. Reducing Power Loss (See Figure 1)
A moderate reduction of power loss has been achieved by installing equipment such as high efficiency UPS (Uninterruptible PowerSupply) and transformers, but IIJ will build a test system to confirm the energy savings of high voltage power supplies, DC to AC
conversion (no D/A conversion), and distributed UPS placement (built into servers and racks) solutions that are being implemented
worldwide. If distributed UPS placement can be implemented it eliminates the need for the building to house UPS clusters, potentiallyreducing construction costs.
3. Operating Generators and Batteries Efficiently for Renewable Energy and Smart Grids
We will evaluate the stable operation of solar, wind, fuel cell, and other power generation equipment that has not been used as a main
power source in conventional data centers, in addition to equipment for leveling the power supply (storage batteries). We will also
work towards utilizing equipment such as power generators and UPS with a low operation rate that has been installed as backup for
power outages by integrating power supply storage batteries with backup UPS. On top of this, we will examine the requirements forinteroperability with external facilities in a smart grid.
We plan to be ready to start proof-of-concept tests at Matsue DCP in phases from the first half of FY 2012.
High Voltage
No D/APower Supply Conversion

Sample Configuration

Typical DC
in Japan

AC420V

AC420V

HVDC

A/D

AC420V

D/A

AC100

BAT
UPS

Power Company

DC384V

D/D

DC12V

NoNo

No

ServerYes

Yes

Conditional

BAT
ServerConditional

Yes

Yes

ServerYes

Yes

Yes

Conditional

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Rack

BAT
AC480V

GoogleA/D
ServerRack

A/D

Power Company

Distributed
UPS Placement

AC200V

A/DPower Company

DC12V

Rack
AC480V

Microsoft

Facebook

A/D

DC12V

BAT

Power Company

Power Company

Rack

DC-48VA/D

1 AC277V
3 AC480V

D/D
BAT
Rack

BAT capacity 45 sec.
AC480V
AC400VHigh Voltage Power Company
Power Supply

A/D

D/A
BAT
UPS

A/D

1 AC230V
3 AC400VServer
RackA/DServer
RackFigure 1: Energy-Saving Technology Trends for Electrical Equipment

Note: Created by IIJ from published resources

Author:Isao Kubo: Deputy General Manager, Data Center Service Department, Service Division, IIJ*1*2“IZmo” IT modules are container-based modules developed by IIJ for constructing data centers optimized for building cloudinfrastructure (www.iij.ad.jp/DC/technology/izmo.html) (in Japanese).
An introduction to the proof-of-concept test equipment for the IIJ group's cloud-oriented data centers (http://www.iij.ad.jp/company/development/tech/activities/dc/) (in Japanese).

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