In spring 2014, Facilities and OIT will oversee power and cooling renovations in Data Center 2 (DC2) that will impact many campus IT services. These renovations, which will help mitigate risks of future outages in DC2, include:

• Installing a backup supply of chilled water to reduce the data center’s reliance on a single primary source of cooling.

• Installing an independent backup generator to reduce the non-data center loads on the existing generator.

• Replacing the remaining air cooled climate control units with water cooled units to reduce data center power consumption for cooling.

Project impact

During this renovation, the campus community will likely experience one or more periods of service outage or degradation of OIT services.  

During periods of highest risk, OIT plans to bring down non-essential services in an effort to reduce DC2’s overall heat and power load. This action will help the data center weather temporary potential power and cooling losses. In the event that these preparatory actions prove insufficient to offset a loss of power or cooling, OIT may need to bring down additional services.

All efforts are being made to minimize the project’s impact on OIT services; however, please be aware that it is not possible for OIT to mitigate all risk to its services during the active phases of this project, and OIT will not have complete control of when the work will occur.

Next steps

• The project team has selected the contractor for this renovation and will begin to generate a detailed timeline for completion of the renovation.

• OIT will publish in early January a follow-up OIT News announcement with further project details and will seek your input as it schedules necessary periods of potential service disruption.

OIT greatly appreciates your understanding and flexibility regarding this important project.