Maximising your capacity and preparing for the future

Maximising your capacity and preparing for the future

Writing for the The Data Centre Alliance, David Leatt talks about the specific data centre needs of hospitals, using Rampton Hospital as a case study

Rampton Hospital is one of the UK’s three high security psychiatric units and part of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. It is a major provider of mental health, intellectual disability and community healthcare services employing around 9,000 staff. The hospital provides integrated and coordinated care and support to not only those using their services but also responsibility for a wide range of roles, including handling around 190,000 patient appointments every year.

2bm, a company specialising in the design, build, refurbishment and upgrade of server rooms and data centres, were challenged with building a reliable and scalable data centre in the heart of a secure location without any disruption to the existing services. The brief wasn’t simply to design and build a data centre to a high standard either - it needed to be best in class.

In addition to the extremely high specification, the trust’s facility had to be built for the future, with the flexibility to expand the load of the data at any time – again without creating any disruption to existing services.

Thanks to the highly efficient, low carbon and sustainable modular design provided by 2bm, the trust now finds itself once again at the forefront of data centre technology and with the space for future growth and expansion.

From conception to completion

The hospital’s mission is one of continuing to work with commissioners, patients, carers and staff in leading the development and provision of high quality, cost effective, secure forensic health care. However, to meet these goals, Nottinghamshire Healthcare required the necessary infrastructure to be at Rampton.

With an existing comms room elsewhere on the site, the trust made four ground floor offices available for refurbishment; three to be transformed for the data centre and an adjacent room to house the switchgear. The data centre also had to be a highly efficient, scalable solution built within the current confines of the existing listed building but still requiring a low cost OPEX in terms of energy consumption and future maintenance. The facility, once completed, had to also last for a minimum of 15-20 years.

From conception to completion, the project was not without its challenges. First, like many hospitals in the UK, the site was restrictive as the structure was an old Victorian building. Aside from being long and thin in shape, the rooms had limited ceiling heights and no space for the introduction of a raised floor. This meant traditional down flow cooling was unsuitable.

Second, as the facility is located in the middle of such a high security area, entry and exit to and from the site was not straightforward. Every item entering and leaving the site was scrutinised with tools audited and checked and all deliveries and waste closely monitored. Similarly, with the restrictive nature of freemovement, items such as mobile phones, laptops and other technological equipment critical for installation work was prohibited.

The solution that the 2bm team ultimately delivered was constructed to allow for modularity, low cost OPEX and future expansion with virtually zero disruption to the day-to-day running of the hospital. The room itself provided maximum visibility to both the IT department and the Estates department in terms of the operational components, energy use and fault altering.

Other benefits of the 2bm design incorporated rear door cooling and the very latest developments in technology, providing an efficient cooling solution within the restricted space. At the same time, the new modular, highly efficient and highly redundant cooling plant solution allowed the connection of the new IT enclosures to a central system in order to maintain an overall low PUE.

By installing completely new electrical systems and switch gear, 2bm significantly minimised future risks whilst still providing a high level of redundancy, using one room supply for IT equipment and the second for cooling equipment.

An existing site-wide generator was also utilised as part of the scheme, with UPS protection introduced via a modular UPS with N+1 power modules to provide reliance. Meanwhile, high density IT racks with 100 per cent expansion were also introduced in order to double the capacity.

In addition, anti-static data centre flooring, VESDA and fire suppression system and environmental monitoring solutions were installed. These were followed by simulated load bank testing and failover IST testing and a specialist data centre clinical clean prior to final handover.

Design success

Commenting on the completed project, Russ James, ICT Facilities Manager at Frampton Hospital, said: “The data centre has been designed and built to the highest standard, allowing Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to showcase as an exemplar in the provision of data centre services and innovation.”

Going forward, M&E expansion plant has been incorporated within the design, and this can also be connected in the future without disruption to operational IT services.

The project itself received significant industry praise and, ultimately, became shortlisted for a national NHS Sustainability Award in recognition of the trust’s investment in the upgrade from standard DX-only cooling to an Adiabatic chiller – helping reduce the data centre’s energy usage and carbon footprint. Whilst 2bm faced some significant competition from other shortlisted projects, they managed to pick up ‘Highly Commended’ Awards in the categories of ‘Innovation’ and ‘Finance’.

FURTHER INFORMATION

www.dca-global.org