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Chinese energy company Three Gorges Group (CTG) has completed the first phase of its Dongyuemiao Data Center project in Yichang, Hubei.

The data center is located on the right bank of the Three Gorges Dam — one of the world’s largest hydropower stations. Once all three phases of the project are completed, the data center will house 26,400 racks, spanning over 100,000 square meters — becoming the largest green data center cluster in central China.

The facility was built in partnership with Huawei Digital Power. The company provided 160 modular equipment rooms, 38 PowerPODs, 320 SmartLi battery energy storage devices, 160 high-temperature fan walls, one iCooling@AI cooling system, and one ‘AI-Robot’ for inspection uses.

The entire power consumption of this first phase, amounting to over 200 million kWh electricity per year, will be supplied using clean hydropower generated by the Three Gorges Dam. The project is naturally cooled by water from the river to significantly reduce energy consumption and boost energy efficiency.

The Dongyuemiao Data Center is built in accordance with the national class-A equipment room standards. It utilizes industry-leading technologies along with proprietary, secure, and controllable products, to become the first large-scale, green, zero-carbon data center in China.

The Dongyuemiao Data Center is a key digital transformation project for the Three Gorges Group and part of its 14th Five-Year Plan, which prioritizes green, digital development.

Source: PRNewswire

In our pursuit towards sustainability, GreenBay was recently awarded the highest Diamond tier of the GCI Certified Green Computing Vendor (CGCV).

The Green Computing Initiative (GCI) has been the leading green computing accreditation and certification organization that certifies and endorses organizations and professionals in Green Computing technologies since 2008. GCI certification is the standard of excellence that the industry seeks in order to ensure efficient and effective sustainable computing practices.

In our pursuit towards sustainability, GreenBay was recently awarded the highest Diamond tier of the GCI Certified Green Computing Vendor (CGCV).

The Green Computing Initiative (GCI) has been the leading green computing accreditation and certification organization that certifies and endorses organizations and professionals in Green Computing technologies since 2008. GCI certification is the standard of excellence that the industry seeks in order to ensure efficient and effective sustainable computing practices.

The CGCV certification
As an implementiation vendor for green data centers, this certification verifies GreenBay conforms to the prescribed standards and quality of work. There are 5 certification tiers namely Diamond, Pearl, Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald. Diamond is the highest tier whilst Emerald is the lowest tier.

Why is it important to engage a GCI Certified Green Computing Vendor (CGCV)?
High demand for data storage management, growing energy cost, and massive electricity consumption have been the catalysts for the increasing demand of green data centers. A green data center offers identical features and abilities of a traditional data center but uses a lower amount of energy and space. Therefore, green data centers are regarded as eco-friendlier and a must for organisations who prioritise sustainability.

GCI provides the industry’s benchmark in recognizing and rewarding best practice in facility energy efficiency and carbon footprint management. GCI’s Certified Green Computing Facility (CGCF) certification provides verifiable evidence that an organization is not only claiming it follows green computing facility best practices but that it has ACTUALLY implemented them.

By engaging a GCI Certified Green Computing Vendor (CGCV), you are assured of a best in its class green data center which maximises energy efficiency.

In addition, engaging a Certified Implementation Vendor, such as GreenBay, ensures that every aspect of a data center project can successfully ace intensive auditing by GCI to obtain it’s green data center facility certification.

A CGCF certified data center stands to enjoy major cost savings through energy efficiency and is prepared for eventual carbon legislation. It is also an acknowledgement of an organizations’s environmental sustainability efforts.

Xi’an, located in Northwest China, is one of the most historical cities in the world, serving as the capital for much of ancient China. Home to the famous Terracotta Army, the city receives hundred of millions of tourists every year.

Droves of tourists bring massive torrents of data. According to third-party database company Statista, 2021 saw a 79 Zettabyte (ZB) increase in data volume, the equivalent of approximately 79 billion Terabytes (TB). Such dramatic increases in data volumes put heavy strains on operators, and those in Xi’an are no exception to this trend.

In order to deal with an influx in mobile data, China Mobile set an ambitious goal to build its new and green Xixian Data Center (Shaanxi) in Xi’an. In collaboration with long-term partner Huawei, they decided on a solution that involved combining a prefabricated modular data center with indirect evaporative cooling technology to achieve a quick service rollout while prioritizing green and low-carbon results.

The data center was divided into 232 modules with the equipment all prefabricated and preinstalled in the factory. Then, after completing onsite preparation, LEGO-like construction was performed. This allowed engineers to complete the entire service rollout in just six months, with construction waste and dust slashed by 80%, and a material recovery rate exceeding 80%.

Huawei’s indirect evaporative cooling technology, however, capitalizes on Xi’an’s climate, drawing air from the surroundings to cool the facilities. Powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, the air compressor is only needed for two months of the year, with the facility relying on natural cooling for the other 10 months, reducing the cooling system’s energy consumption by more than 50%. As such, over a 10-year cycle, nearly 60 million kWh of electricity is saved, alongside 400,000 tonnes of water, which translates into slashing carbon emissions by 27,000 tonnes, the equivalent of planting 37,000 trees.

Huawei recently delivered a prefabricated modular data center for Safaricom as the telco begins to ramp up operations and launch a mobile network service in Ethiopia.

Source: PRNewswire

In a digital age, businesses increasingly rely on data centers to deliver high-availability environments that support their mission-critical workload.

With financial institutions, every minute of downtime can impact revenue, productivity, customer satisfaction and reputation. The cost of an hour of downtime can range from $1 million to more than $5 million, excluding legal fees, fines and penalties. This number can climb to millions per minute if the outage interrupts a major business transaction or occurs during peak business hours.

Given the potential of a severe financial burden, financial institutions need a data center that can deliver the reliability that matches their uptime requirements.

How do you measure data center reliability?

Uptime Institute’s Tier Standard is the globally recognized standard for data center reliability and overall performance. Founded in 1993, the Uptime Institute has been dedicated to the exploration and study of data center infrastructure.

In 2005, the Uptime Institute designed the data center Tier Classification System which offers a consistent and objective international standard for data center performance. The capabilities of a data center escalate as you graduate from Tier I, which offers the least reliability, to Tier IV, with the most.

The Tier Classification System

Each tier includes the requirements of the previous level as you move up the tier ladder.

As the most basic level, a Tier I data center extends no guarantee of redundancy for any critical systems. At a minimum, the Uptime Institute requires it to offer a UPS; a designated space for IT systems; dedicated cooling equipment that runs outside of office hours; and an engine generator.

Tier II data centers build on the requirements of Tier I to include some redundant components. While this partial redundancy improves reliability to 99.741% uptime yearly, these facilities still utilize a single distribution path for power and cooling and are still susceptible to unexpected interruptions.

The architecture of a Tier III data center offers the capacity to support the full IT load and also offers an additional component for backup purposes, so performance is not impacted if a single component fails. The level of redundancy here offers concurrent maintainability, meaning that each critical component or distribution path can be shut down for planned maintenance without affecting the IT environment. However, Tier III data centers can conduct routine maintenance without impacting service, but are still at risk of downtime during unscheduled events.

Tier IV data centers are the most sophisticated tier certified by the Uptime Institute. Offering a completely independent architecture that duplicates every critical component of the primary architecture and provides multiple distribution paths, this fault-tolerant design provides twice the capacity required to operate at full IT load. This tier is generally populated by government organizations and large global enterprises with mission-critical servers and intense customer or business demands.

For industries with mission-critical workloads such as the financial sector, data centers must be reliable and that operations are not derailed due to system failure or natural disaster. The Tier Classification System provides a guide on the data center tier level that can best balance your risk tolerance and budget.

The financial sector is dealing with an increasing volume of data to be managed – data which must be stored securely and data which must move fast. Here’s a look at the many ways that the financial sector rely upon data centers.

Electronic trading drives demand

The shift to electronic trading has been a significant factor in the financial sector’s use of data centers. It has increased access to financial market data, allowing anyone with an internet connection to get involved in stock trading. Trading happens all over the world, and data centers must handle the demand and perform consistently.

Big data processing and analytics

The popularity and use of Big Data increases every year, which ultimately improves understanding of clients’ needs, their experience and behaviour models. According to the research conducted by IDC research, the banking sector invests the most money in the analysis of Big Data. This can be explained by the increase in the number of solutions and products created by FinTech companies specifically for banks to manage assets and liabilities.

Big data processing and analytics

The popularity and use of Big Data increases every year, which ultimately improves understanding of clients’ needs, their experience and behaviour models. According to the research conducted by IDC research, the banking sector invests the most money in the analysis of Big Data. This can be explained by the increase in the number of solutions and products created by FinTech companies specifically for banks to manage assets and liabilities.

Using AI to make trading decisions

When financial traders have sufficient information, they can make the most effective decisions as the market fluctuates. People are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to get better results in the financial sector. AI applications require processing at well-equipped data centers. Unnecessary delays in the financial trading sector could make people miss out on opportunities that could grow their wealth.

The financial sector depends on data centers for success. That will almost certainly remain true as data-driven technologies become more advanced. This reliance means data centers must deliver high-availability environments that support their mission-critical workloads. For institutions in the financial sector, data center uptime is of upmost importance. Stay tuned for the next article in The Application Series as we explore data center uptime and performance.