With the UK expecting to invest around £2.19bn in data centres during the 2011-2012 financial year, it’s hardly surprising that people are beginning to be drawn in from other industries. This exciting new influx of expertise and ideas will only strengthen the market.I aim to carry over a number of skills from real estate to data centres in order to offer a solution that is flexible to the needs of our clients.

At MK DataVault we have approached this by offering a range of different sized powered shells and asking customers how they would like to use them, rather than designing a data centre in a certain way and telling customers how to use it. Every business is different and their varying needs reflect this.

We will always be more than happy to accommodate the one or two requirements out there for a large amount of space, but it is also important to focus on the future which I believe is in small/ medium sized businesses. The evolution of cloud computing means that companies are moving out of cities and taking their data storage needs with them.I thinkthis is where our market opportunity lies. The flexibility we can offer as property developers will be the key to supporting this new type of demand.

Our extensive contacts in the construction industry will allow us to build a powered shell in which clients will be able to choose how much space they want. We are looking to fill the data centre by offering the kind of finance and lease terms usually associated with buying office space. We will be far more accommodating for small businesses than a lot of the other terms offered when purchasing data centre space. By having the means to finance the project up front, we have not had to compromise our vision for an energy efficient, value engineered site.

Our property expertise has also been useful to ensure we create a data centre that is incredibly energy efficient. We have developed many green buildings in the past and are using our contacts in this area when developing MK DataVault.

One of the main issues any data centre comes across is the amount of energy used to maintain environmental conditions within the data halls. In this area we see an opportunity to make a difference by using the latest hybrid cooling technologies and therefore minimising our energy consumption. Other opportunities include state of the art high efficiency power supply systems to further reduce our energy consumption. The fans delivering the cooling within the data halls will be controlled by direct digital control systems, with intelligent algorithms and variable speed drives to match the cooling to the load and further reduce energy.

But cooling isn’t the only aspect of MK DataVault that will be green. We are going to use the same low energy Passive Infrared (PIR) sensor lighting that is used in many of our other projects. This lighting senses the movement of individuals in a room and will only light up the area that is being used. This is especially useful for data centres in big rooms that will rarely be visited by more than a handful of people. The power usage of the site will be closely monitored and a range of meters will be used so any unnecessary usage will be flagged straight away and reduced. All these measures are being put in place so that we can achieve our ambitious Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) targets.

The data centre industry seems to have reached a turning point due to huge demand for storage and the various methods of providing it. I’m excited to see how businesses will react to the fresh approach and increased flexibility offered by a modern facility.

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