Server Rooms require the ability to effectively distribute power to racks, data cables, and cooling (i.e. air, water, coolant). Therefore, Server Room designers need to consider how best to distribute these services throughout the server room while also considering how best to address future requirements such as growth, increased demand for data distribution, and technological advances in cooling approaches.
Server room raised floors are the hallmark of the high-availability enterprise data center, and with good reason. For many companies, the presentation of their server room is an important part of facility tours for key customers. Data centers and server rooms without raised floors are perceived as being incomplete or less than state of the art.
Some of PTS’ Server Room Solutions:
The raised flooring within server rooms was developed to provide the following:
- A distribution system for conditioned cold air
- Tracks, conduits, and/or supports for data cabling
- Conduits for power cabling
- A copper ground grid for grounding of equipment
- A location to run chilled water and/or other CRAC piping
Needs for conditioned cold air and power distribution contribute to the popularity of raised floors. Both operations people and server room design firms value the flexibility that is provided by raised floor systems. Regarding power requirements, the number of branch circuits per square foot in today’s data center is much greater than in the past. In most cases, it is easier to install and maintain under-floor branch circuits than ceiling-mounted branch circuits. Although, a recent trend is to utilize a power and data cable pathway as part of the cabinet system. This effectively reduces the cable quantities under the raised floor, thereby allowing for greater open space dedicated to air distribution. In general, raised server room floors are a predictable and practical design option for most facilities.
Evaluating and selecting a server room raised floor solution requires consideration for a number of variables. For easy access, raised floor solutions need panels that can be easily removed for access to cables, cooling, and power below. And, because racks in today’s server rooms are getting heavier every year (more server processing in a smaller footprint), server room raised floor designs need the strength and stability of a bolted stringer understructure rather than panels that just self-lock to the pedestals at the corners.
Selecting the right server room raised floor solution requires an understanding of the structural needs for racks that will sit on the raised floor system as well as an understanding of concentrated load ratings. This is the maximum load that can be applied to the weakest one square inch of the tile without deforming it by more than a specified amount. These are just some of the design considerations when preparing to deploy server room raised floor systems.
From installing raised server room floors to performing raised floor cooling assessments to monitoring increasing power requirements to cleaning raised floor systems, PTS Data Center Solutions is the ideal provider for planning and designing server rooms and helping to maintain and monitor them once installation in complete. For results you can count on, let PTS continue to serve you.
To learn more about PTS’ Server Room Raised Floor design and deployment services & solutions, contact PTS or visit:
- Server Room Planning & Pre-Design
- Server Room Design
- Server Room Air Conditioning Specialists
- Server Room Cooling Systems
- Server Room Raised Floor
- Network Room Availability
Other services for Data Center design are available here:
- PTS Data Center Planning & Pre-Design
- Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Services
- Data Center Energy Usage Assessment Service
- Data Center Power & Cooling Systems Analysis
- Data Center Availability & Risk Assessment
- Data Center Design Commissioning
- IT Implementation Services
- Data Center Support Infrastructure Equipment Services
- Raised Floor Cooling Analysis
- The Challenges of Data Center Cooling
- Help With High Density Cooling
- Data Center Feasibility Analysis
- Data Center Site Assessment
- Thermography Assessment Service
- PTS Virtualization Strategies & Assessments
- IT Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery
- Data Center Routing and Switching Planning & Feasibility
- Data Center Server Planning & Feasibility
- Data Center Storage Area Network (SAN) and Data Protection Planning & Feasibility