Brisbane mega data centre shows off its architecture

The first stage of the mega-complex is located in Brisbane’s Kenmore district. With its sister facility, Data Centre City (which begins construction in south Brisbane in 2009), it will collectively be the largest and highest density data centre complex anywhere in the world, according to the builders.

The new centre’s technology shopping list includes supplemental cooling, power provision and protection, and rack enclosures from Emerson Network Power; 48-port gigabit switches and 10 gigabit core switches from Netgear and Force10 respectively; high-performance blade servers from Sun Microsystems; Internet firewall technology from Check Point; internal virtual security solutions from Reflex Security; security cameras from Bosch; and biometric palm scanners from Fujitsu.

“We’ve also relied on local firm Arnold Electrical & Data Installations for fitting the site since day one,” said Daniel Ngo, a co-director of Digital Sense.

Like the Fujitsu centre in Sydney, the complex is pursuing a high degree of energy efficiency in its operations.

“For example, unlike other data centres, it does not use water for its cooling systems,” said the firm’s other co-director, Michael Tran.

“The Kenmore site will potentially save more than 50 million litres of water annually, with the larger south Brisbane site potentially saving a further 750 million litres annually.”

The centre is being designed to cater to extreme high-density computing loads of up to 25kw per rack across the entire floor space, the company said.