Data Center Colocation Facilities | Environment

HVAC

Air conditioning is provided by a fully redundant N+1 chilled water based closed-loop cooling system and electric coil heating system feeding multiple Leibert air-handling units. The Houston data center utilizes six (6) thirty (30) ton units and two (2) twenty (20) ton units for a total dispersion capability of 220 tons or 2.4 million BTUs in overlapping zones. Air circulation is provided via a down draft raised floor system where conditioned air is provided from below and drawn up and across the facility through unit returns.

The HVAC systems supplement facility antistatic flooring surfaces by also maintaining proper humidification to prevent static discharge within the facility. Humidification is provided via infrared source to maintain humidity levels. Internap monitors the HVAC and humidification systems both locally and remotely.

Cable Management

The production area uses an overhead cable tray system instead of the less convenient raised-floor used in some other data centers. The reasons for this configuration are three-fold. First, from a security perspective, all cabling (fiber and copper lines and power conductors) are visible and monitored by Data Center facility personnel. Thus, the possibility of a customer pulling the "wrong" cable has been eliminated. Second, cable management is much more efficient when accessible, as opposed to being run under a floor.

Because many cross-connects are utilized, efficient cable management is essential. Finally, in a water dispersion situation, overhead cable management means a lower risk of water related outage due to standing water under raised floors. All cable used to provide connectivity is run in a ladder tray separate and above the DC power and fiber feeds. All power is run in shielded electrical conduit under floor to prevent signal path interference, which might otherwise impact the quality of the data signal. All connectivity cabling is dropped from above into the customer cabinet/cage areas. In cage solutions, additional levels of ladder trays can be installed at the customer's request and expense for increased management and control flexibility.

Electrical Power

Power enters the Data Center colocation facility via a 480V feed from dual substations. Inside the data center, the incoming power is fed into dual transformers providing diverse and independent power distribution to the colocation area. All power is routed through strings of gel cell batteries that are capable of maintaining full load for at least 20 minutes in the event of a power failure. Should power be disrupted, generator logic control systems will sense the interruption and activate generators within 9 seconds. Should the automatic systems fail to immediately activate the generators, the system has an override allowing Internap Field Operations personnel to manually activate the generators. The generator is capable of maintaining full load for at least 48 hours. To this end, fuel is kept on site specifically for Internap use. All Data Centers maintain refueling contracts, which ensures that in the event of an emergency.

Under normal operating conditions, the Power Distribution Units serve as harmonic filters to prevent unwanted electronic signal "noise" from being introduced into customer equipment. By using clean power, customer equipment will run longer and cooler as compared to running off typical unfiltered electrical feeds. The backup electricity also powers our fire suppression and HVAC systems to insure that these systems are not interrupted. All power systems are locally and remotely monitored for additional failure detection and redundancy.

DC Power

Our carrier nuetral Data Centers all maintain a DC power plant, eliminating the need for carrier provided power rectifiers for DC conversion. The plant is fully redundant and provides 2100A - 48V DC power. The DC power system is capable of maintaining the full DC power load for 4 hours in the event of electrical and generator failures.

Fire Suppression

Data Center facilities use a multiple zoned, pre-action dry pipe system. In a dry pipe system, the overhead sprinkler pipes are not charged with water until an appropriate sequence of multiple cross-linked events occur. The activation process requires detection smoke "sniffers" and heat detectors located throughout the facility to trigger the alert. Internap uses laser based VESDA detectors to perform the air/particulate analysis.

With electrical fires posing the most threat, VESDA is designed to detect the compounds and particulate released in the long smoldering stage before the actual flashpoint is reached. VESDA alarm gives onsite technicians time to investigate the area and detect and isolate the malfunctioning equipment before a fire is even present. However, in case an event reaches flashpoint and the warning provided by VESDA was not early enough, water is charged into the appropriate sprinkler zone. At this point, no water is discharged until an individual sprinkler head recognizes temperature in excess of 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Fire suppression is then localized at the event point only. All alarms and water dispersion are remotely monitored by the on-site Internap staff and by building security.