As announced earlier this year, the new Data Center on the UF East Campus is rapidly coming into being. Here we offer some of the background on this new facility, and a little bit of the history of Computing & Networking Services.

CNS's current data center facility was built in 1967, and has been operating 24x7x365 continuously since that time. Because of the explosion of information technology in the last 20 years, it is very close to reaching maximum capacity. Related to this is the increasing dependence by the University on Information Technology for mission-critical operations. This has heightened concerns over the lack of second-site, disaster recovery, redundant operations capability. Repeated university and state audits have targeted this as an important risk/vulnerability which needs to be fixed.

Compounding the problem is the fact that servers have popped up in numerous locations around campus, largely in office buildings. Buildings that house both people and machines are extremely difficult to manage in an energy-efficient manner.

Consolidation of servers into a central facility is essential to accomplish the University President's goal of a "greener," more environmentally-friendly and responsible campus.

Another important issue is the need for High Performance Computing capacity for faculty researchers to utilize in pursuit of the university's research mission.

Additional data center space is sorely needed to address all of these concerns: capacity for mission-critical operations; redundant, second site disaster recovery ability; energy cost savings; and support for research computing.

The new East Campus Data Center, to be situated next to the new office building on the same site, offers these advantages:

• Approximately 10,000 square feet of raised floor, including space for Enterprise Systems and HPC/Research Computing Space, at or upgradable to Tier 3 (N+1 redundant power & cooling). Discussions include exploration of options for future building-footprint expansion (horizontally/single-story)
• Cooling planned to primarily use in-row targeted cooling units to allow for efficient deployment of zones of varying power-density; a few CRACs (Computer Room Air Conditioners) to provide cooling for low-density areas, and general room humidification.
• Redundant networking back to campus, planned to include dedicated ("dark fiber") primary, and leased 10GigE bandwidth backup
• Concrete-block "bunker" design, designed to be Hurricane Category 3+ rated
• Intended to be operated "lights-out," with monitoring done from SSRB Operations Center.
• Implement the IT Action Plan recommendation to create a second-site data center for UF IT operations. Specifically:
  • Create a secondary site for Enterprise Systems redundancy, continuity of operations, and disaster recovery.
  • Provide a facility to accommodate consolidation of college & department servers from various campus buildings into a central site. This will allow for better power-management of campus buildings, reduce power-usage, and save money.
  • Accommodate expanding needs for High Performance Computing/Academic Research.
  • Accommodate growth/expansion of existing services (Enterprise Data Center).
  • Add new services (College/departmental hosting, High-Performance [research] Computing) which do not necessarily need the same degree of reliability/availability as enterprise services (Tier 0 vs. Tier 3).
  • Position for long-range growth/expansion of all services via both additional floor-space and increased power

Impact: The building of a second, off-site data center will lead to:

• Improved reliability of UF's mission-critical IT-based business processes
• Improved recoverability of UF's mission-critical IT based business processes, in the event of a disaster affecting the main campus data center
• Improved efficiency in UF building energy management, resulting in reduced energy costs and reduced environmental "carbon footprint"
• Expanded capacity for high-performance/research computing

Project Sponsors

• Dr. Bernie Machen, President, University of Florida
• Matthew Fajack, UF Chief Financial Officer
• Dr. Charles Frazier, Interim UF-CIO
• Ed Poppell, Vice President for Business Affairs
• Tim Fitzpatrick, Associate CIO; Director, Computing & Networking Services

At this time the project schedule is very preliminary, and subject to change; however the facility is currently targeted for final completion in December 2010. Information about this project is available at the UF FP&C Project Information page.