Containing data centres!

Rittal now have a 12 m long XL version of its turnkey Data Centre Container (DCC) especially designed for IT applications and targeted at medium-sized companies with a very high demand for computing power, as well as at large corporations or hosting providers.

Equipped with their IT infrastructure components, benefits include an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), an automatic fire alarm and extinguisher system, power supply and distribution, raised floors, as well as access control and monitoring functions. Rittal’s DCC also has a reinforced exterior shell, burglary protection features to protect against external threats and energy-efficient climate control.

As many as sixteen TS 8 server racks with 752 height units can be accommodated within a Rittal DCC XL and with an outer width of 3 m and height of 3.25 m it is approximately 60 cm wider and 65 cm taller than the ISO standard. These generous dimensions provide technicians and administrators with enough free space for installation and maintenance.

Its design allows a separation into hot and cold aisles to allow targeted cooling of the servers. The use of direct free cooling is also possible, depending on the geographical location, where this filtered outside air is guided directly into the container. A switch-over to a conventional climate control unit is then only made at high external temperatures. This way, a very good PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of less than 1.2 can be achieved.

A Rittal DCC can be standardised, to meet the specific requirements of server farms, which are composed of dozens of containers and serve entire regions or continents via software services.

Due to the possibility of physically separating server racks and technology, the Rittal DCC XL is especially suited for "private clouds". A high level of physical security is guaranteed therefore air conditioning technicians can maintain the climate control system, without having to obtain real access to the servers themselves.