We outline the five steps to building a data center, from concept to completion. The construction of data centers is booming. Despite rising material and real estate costs, the data center construction market is expected to grow by $8.7 billion over the next four years, at a CAGR of more than 10%. Last year, more than 100 hyperscale data centers were built, with hundreds of new projects in the works.
Phase One: Evaluation
The assessment phase usually begins with site selection after a developer has finalized the project’s goals and target customer. Choosing the best location for a data center can have a significant impact on factors such as the facility’s access to renewable energy and ability to perform free cooling.
Phase Two: Preparation
This phase (along with the design process) may occur concurrently with, or even before, the site selection and assessment process. The developer outlines the various parameters the site will need to meet, such as a target PUE, whether the site will be built greenfield or retrofitted, levels of power redundancy, and whether the site will be made in multiple phases or all at once.
Design is the third phase
This is where the broad criteria established during the assessment and planning phases are translated into specific answers to questions such as how many racks the data center will have, how the building’s power can meet certain standards such as LEED certification, and how individual server halls will be laid out.
Construction and commissioning are the fourth and final phases
This phase is about carrying out the site’s design, typically involving extensive collaboration with partners and contractors to carry out completed designs. The timeline for constructing a data center can vary greatly depending on regulatory, logistical, and financial concerns. A simple 2 MW colocation facility could be operational in a matter of months. In contrast, a 200 MW hyperscale campus could take years to build – which is why many of these campuses are operational in stages.
Phase 5: Operations
Operators will try to keep the time between the completion of a data hall and the move-in date for its customers as short as possible in order to maximize revenues and begin to generate ROI. When a facility starts up, it starts generating data about itself, allowing for on-the-fly tweaks and redesigns that can improve the performance of later stages of the facility.
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