Cambridge University Case Study

The Client

The University of Cambridge’s West Cambridge Site is situated on the west side of the City adjacent to the M11. The Broers Building occupies a prominent position at the end of JJ Thomson Avenue with a landscaped lake beyond and open countryside to its south- ern aspect. The overall west Cambridge site comprises 165 acres and offers an attractive well landscaped environment.

The University of Cambridge’s West Cambridge Site is integral to the University of Cambridge offer and is home to many of the University’s schools, faculties, departments, research centres and institutes at the forefront of research. 

The Brief

In 2013 The University of Cambridge was relocating it’s data centre to the West Cambridge site and needed a temporary install in the city centre pending the new build planned for 2014. 

Parameters

They required a Tier 1 temporary install with a Tier 3 for the permanent install to house the Cambridge University HPC but had to be movable and re used in the new data centre building within 18 months. 

Solution

We installed 34 rear coolers via interface frames (supported with UniStrut to the building – allowing any of their existing cabinets to be moved in or out at any time. 

Kilowatt duty

The ColdLogik solution gave 600kW giving 5-40kW per cabinet as required. 

Energy savings

Very low cooling power consumption with a super PUE of 1.05 meant that this data centre ranked number 2 in the Green 500 data centres in the world.

External plant

1 x hybrid cooler with a water supply of up to 25°C 

Timescale and budget

The project came in on time and within budget