Vincent Fogarty is a consultant with 40 years of experience working on construction and engineering projects. He is a fellow of the RICS, a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and a specialist in mechanical and electrical engineering and quantum matters.

Sophia Flucker is an engineering consultant with extensive experience in data centre design, commissioning, and assessment, with years of experience working on projects in multiple countries. She received an Infrastructure Masons IM100 Award in 2020 in recognition of her contributions to the digital infrastructure sector.

Acronyms & Symbols xi Foreword by Tom Glover xv Preface xvii Acknowledgements xxi About the Authors xxiii 1 Introduction 1 2 What Drives the Need and the Various Types of Data Centres 5 Data Demand versus Compute Efficiency 8 Workload Placement 15 The Core Components of a Data Centre 18 Types of Data Centres 18 Entreprise Data Centre 18 Colocation 20 Public Cloud 21 Urban or Edge 21 3 Site Selection 23 Climate 26 Access Roads and Airports 27 Air Quality 27 Likelihood of Natural Disasters 28 Ground Conditions 29 Communications Infrastructure 29 Latency 30 Proximity to Subsea Cable Landing Sites 33 Density of Fibre Telecommunication Networks Near the Data Centre 33 Geopolitical Risks, Laws, and Regulations 34 Availability and Cost of Electrical Power 35 Natural Resources 36 Airport Flight Paths 36 Electromagnetic Interference 37 Taxes, Regulations, and Incentives 38 Incentives 39 Know the Stakeholders 41 Expect the Unexpected 41 Traditional Due Diligence 42 Retrofitting Commercial Buildings for Data Centres 42 Clusters 43 Qualitative Analysis 48 Quantitative Analysis 48 4 IT Operations and the Evolution of the Data Centre 51Max Schulze Beginning of IT Infrastructure 54 Bringing Enterprise IT to Maturity 55 IT Applications as Standalone Products - The Digital Economy 55 Second Iteration of the Internet 58 Key Ingredients for Digital Products 61 Difference Between Enterprise IT Infrastructure and Hosting Infrastructure 64 Commoditisation of IT Infrastructure 65 Virtualisation: Servers and Data Centres as Generators for Digital Resources 65 Software-as-a-Service: Digital Natives Entering the Enterprise 68 Great Outsourcing of Enterprise IT and the Growth of the Colocation Model 70 When Digital Products Scale - or the Invention of Hyperscale 71 A Change in Architecture - The Rise of Cloud Infrastructure 72 Origin of a Market for Digital Resources 75 When Cloud Infrastructure Became Cloud Services 78 When Microsoft and Google Joined the Party 79 Kubernetes and the Next Layer of Abstraction 81 How Traditional Hosting Companies Have Been Left Behind 82 How the New Paradigm of Cloud Infrastructure Is Changing How Data Centres Are Built 85 Central Role of Connectivity in the Future of Data Centre Architectures 86 Problem of an Old IT Philosophy 87 5 Overview of Infrastructure 89 Power 93 Cooling 97 BMS 106 Fire 106 Security 107 6 Building a Data Centre: Stakeholders, Design, Construction, and Commissioning 109 Stakeholders and Project Stages 109 Pre-project 110 Pre-design 111 Classifications, Standards, and Certifications 112 Design 112 Bricks and Mortar versus Modular Build 115 Procurement 116 Construction 120 Construction Design and Management 2015 (United Kingdom) 120 Commissioning 122 Handover 124 Operation 125 7 Operational Issues 127 Handover 127 Legacy Facilities 128 Operations Team 128 Uptime and Failures 130 Maintenance Processes and Procedures 133 Managing Change 135 Capacity Management 136 Training 136 Performance Optimisation - Beyond Reactive Maintenance 137 8 Economics, Investment, and Procurement of Data Centres 139 Enterprise 140 Colocation 141 Retail Colocation 141 Wholesale Colocation 142 Retail versus Hyper-scale Data Centres 142 Retail Data Centres 142 Hyper-Scale Data Centres 142 Investment and Procurement 143 Investment in Colocation Facilities 143 Power Supply Arrangements 146 Other Complexities 148 Valuation 149 Colocation Leases 155 Wholesale Colocation 156 Retail Colocation 156 Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) 157 Managed Hosting and Cloud Services 157 Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) 158 Merger and Acquisition 159 9 Sustainability 163 Corporate Sustainability 163 Energy Consumption and Energy Efficiency 166 Renewable Energy 170 Generators 171 Water Usage 171 Heat Recovery 172 Life Cycle Impacts 173 Green Building Certifications 175 Policy and Regulation 176 Conclusion 176 10 The Importance of Planning to Avoid Things Going Wrong 177Andrew McMillan Introduction 177 Acquisitions and Investments 178 Operating Models and Commercial Contracts 183 Funding Investment 184 Construction 184 Choice of Contract 184 Technical and Pricing Schedules 185 Risk Allocation 185 Usual Suspects 186 Infrastructure Provision and Project Rights 187 Construction 188 Moving to Low Carbon Solutions 188 What Are Data Centre Operators Doing to Transition to Low Carbon? 189 Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs) 190 On-site Generation and Electricity Supply 191 Backup Power 192 Where Could Other Efficiencies Be Made? 193 Ensuring Resilience 194 Intellectual Property Rights 194 Data and Cyber/Regulatory Compliance 196 Disputes 196 Conclusion 198 11 Around the Corner, What Could Happen Next 199 Glossary 203 Index 207