Omaha, Nebraska-based colo Scott Data Center earned Tier III Design Certification for its data center expansion plans. The Uptime Institute conducted an independent third party review of Scott Data Center’s design drawings which includes the addition of 20 megawatts of power and cooling capability to its existing infrastructure.

The Omaha World Herald published a story about the expansion last week, quoting Uptime Institute VP Julian Kudtrizki:

Now certified, the expanded data center will be the lone multitenant operation in Nebraska or Iowa and only the fifth in the United States to receive [Uptime Institute Tier III Certification]. It also means more major businesses will employ the data center’s services, Kudritzki said. “This is absolutely a big deal,” Kudritzki said. “It’s going to be a huge competitive differentiator.”

Julius Neudorfer just wrote a great article on ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 expanding the recommended environmental envelope for server hardware equipment.

From the article at CTO Edge:

The details of the expanded temperature and humidity ranges are going to be released in the soon-to-be-published third edition of the ASHRAE datacom book, “Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments.”

According to Don Beaty, chair of the Publications Subcommittee of ASHRAE’s Technical Committee (TC) 9.9, Mission Critical Facilities, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment: The approach used by TC 9.9 for the first edition through to the present was to assemble a team of thermal engineers from the major commercial IT manufacturers to develop requirements. The first edition created a recommended temperature upper limit of 77 F (25 C), promoting the use of higher temperatures and endorsed by all of the IT manufacturers.

The second edition (2008) took considerable deliberation amongst the manufacturers and raised the recommended upper limit to 81 F (27 C). Both the first and second editions were groundbreaking (the first edition in unifying the industry and the second edition in enabling the potential to use economizers in many locations and applications).

Beaty will unveil the new expanded temperature ranges at the Data Center Dynamics conference in New York, March 10 2011.

Terry Altom, P.E., an Uptime Institute Professional Services consultant said data center managers who want to take advantage of the energy efficiencies gained by raising server inlet air temperatures will have their work cut out for them.

“You need to have a solid knowledge of all of the server equipment requirements in your data center. Talk to your vendor representatives, know the allowable and recommended ranges and how temperature impacts the server warranty.

“If you have an equipment failure while under warranty, and the manufacturers say the temperatures are out of line, they won’t honor the warranty,” Altom said. “Temperature recording would be a must — put data loggers all over the data center to know exactly what your temperatures are. If you have the manpower to do it manually. Or you can use a tool like Emerson Liebert’s Aperture that allows you to put thermometers inside the racks and record temperatures throughout the data center.”

What are the top data center management issues in 2011-2012? Find out in this new video, featuring Vince Renaud, Vice President and Managing Principle of Uptime Institute Professional Services. Vince is presenting at the Uptime Institute Symposium, Santa Clara Calif. May 9-12 2011, and his presentation will kick off the Uptime Institute track at the event.

Last week, Turk Telekom’s Gayrettepe Data Center was awarded the first Uptime Institute Tier III Design Certification. The Gayrettepe Data Center design can support data center infrastructure maintenance without disrupting site operations. Some photos of the site below from Andrew Robertson:

A couple weeks back, SearchDataCenter.com quoted Uptime Institute in a blog post about raised floors in the data center, but we thought the article was a bit one-sided. Here is the full response we sent to the editor.

More data center managers are looking at slab floor data center design for several reasons, but the primary one is rack density. As IT execs cram denser, more power servers into a 42U space, it becomes increasingly difficult to cool systems with under-floor forced air, even with hot-aisle/cold-aisle design best practices. The CRAC vendors have responded with in-row and in-rack cooling products that bring the cooling closer to the heat source, which can be more energy-efficient than moving cold air all around the data center. Also, raised floors can cause data center staff access headaches — the plenum can be a hassle to keep clean, and working under the tiles can be a chore. That said, there are just as many arguments for keeping a raised floor: design flexibility, for a backup cooling system in case the closely coupled high density systems fail, and for baseline humidity and temperature control. The best way for a owner/operator make a decision is to bring the IT department into the design process to explain hardware deployment plans and roadmaps.

Raised floor is cheap for the long term strategic flexibility it provides. The air flow benefits touted by cooling vendors for slab on grade largely revolve around proprietary cooling solutions. The vast majority of technically proficient end users are still installing raised floors.