PTCL Data Centers – An essential asset for digital evolution

Data Centers have been around since the dawn of modern computing age and are built to last forever, yet the equipment inside is continuously upgrading and require state-of-the-art facility. It is amazing that the largest ICT service provider in the country, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is providing such a facility, which is also Rated 3 certified and is built in accordance with the design and certification of TIA 942 standards. It provides scalability, long term reliability, maximum protection against adverse events and environmental controls (e.g. air conditioning, fire suppression).

Innovation in DC Power Transport and Aisle Containment in PTCL Data Centers

 The company has shown growth and continues to uphold its reputation of adopting innovation in its technical facilities. PTCL Data Center & Technology Operations (DC & TO) team took the lead and introduced the innovative and flexible way to transport DC power from the source to the load through the DC busway trunking system and adopted the concept of aisle containment for energy efficiency in PTCL Data Centers.

DC Busway System in PTCL Data Center

For the first time, the company deployed the DC busway system in their critical facility located in Satellite Town, Rawalpindi, which replaced the huge bunch of conventional cables and power distribution frames. By adopting this method of transporting DC power, PTCL not only improved the continuity of service in their technical facility but also reduces the passive footprint enabling full utilization of white space areas for telecom and IT cabinets. This system can be adjusted effortlessly to the changing needs, as a result, there is a significant reduction in change requests. DC Busway system reduces the long-term impact on the environment by saving wastes generated during traditional retrofits. This flexible, adaptable and sustainable solution helped the national telecom to invest for today’s needs while preparing for tomorrow’s possibilities.

The DC busway system also consists of the main artery having a capacity of 6000 Ampere (A). Branches extended from the main artery in each aisle have a capacity of 800A, with the tap off the flexibility of 16A to 100A. The busway runs from two redundant DC systems and this redundancy ensures high availability of power all the way to each cabinet.

This solution in PTCL, Satellite Town, Data Center ensures 2N redundancy, complete protection against equipment failures & short circuits in the electrical network and is flexible enough to cater to low and high-density ICT equipment.

Aisle containment in PTCL Data Centers

A prime factor of Data Center operational cost is energy consumption by cooling and ICT equipment. To optimize cooling energy cost, it is necessary to utilize the cooling system at optimal performance and make it energy efficient. Aisle containment strategies are introduced for this purpose. The basic idea is to isolate hot air from cold air to ensure the best utilization of air as per the demand of ICT equipment. This reduces the extra load on cooling equipment and cooling capacity is fully utilized for ICT load only. In addition to energy efficiency, it allows uniform temperature and eliminates hot spots typically found in traditional data centers.

A cold aisle containment encloses the cold air in front of rack rows in the shape of a room having doors at both ends of the aisle. With this arrangement, the hot and cold airstreams are separated. The temperature of the rest of the room can be set at a higher point thus, reducing the additional load on cooling units. A well-sealed cold aisle containment system offers a better thermal environment for the ICT equipment. It is expected that the ICT equipment’s ability to pull the air through the cooling unit increases with the proper sealed and a bit pressurized contained aisle.

PTCL has implemented the cold aisle containment in its Commercial Data Center, Lahore (CDC LHR) and Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD), Pak Capital, Karachi and saved approximately 25% of the operational cost.

Enterprises and corporate customers can avail of this secure facility to move their essential IT/Telecom infrastructure into PTCL Data Centers. The Data Centers are conveniently located in major cities of the country with the highest level of security, resilience, and flexibility. This not only helps companies to reduce their cost but also increase the business value of IT and make a realistically manageable footprint.