Data Center Projects: Establishing a Floor Plan Outline

Course Description:
A floor plan strongly affects the power density capability and electrical efficiency of a data center.
Yet many floor plans are established through incremental deployment without a central plan. Once
a poor floor plan has been deployed, it is often difficult or impossible to recover the resulting loss of
performance. This course provides structured floor plan guidelines for defining room layouts and
for establishing IT equipment layouts within existing rooms. This is the fourth course in the Data
Center Projects series.

Course Outline:
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this course, you will be able to:
• Define a data center floor plan
• Discuss floor planning concepts; including structural room and equipment layouts
• Describe the effects of the floor plan on data center performance
• Review basic principles of both equipment layouts and structural room layouts
• Identify the floor planning sequence
• Avoid common errors in equipment layout

Agenda
Introduction
Role of the Floor Plan within the data center design / build process
Floor Planning Concepts
The Effects of Floor Plans on Data Center Performance
Basic Principles of Equipment Layout
Basic Principles of Structural Room Layout
Floor Planning Sequence
Common Errors in Equipment Layout
Summary

Course Content or Material

1) Introduction

2) Role of the Floor Plan

a) Role of the Floor Plan in the System Planning Sequence
b) Reasons floor plans are part of preliminary specification

3) Floor Planning Concepts

a) Structural room layout

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 b) Equipment layout

4) The Effects of Floor Plans on Data Center Performance

a) Number of rack locations
b) Achievable power density
c) Complexity of distribution systems
d) Predictability of cooling performance
e) Electrical efficiency

5) Basic Principals of Structural Room Layouts

a) Standardized room dimensions
i) Impact of room dimensions
b) Location of support columns in boundary layout
c) Phased deployments
i) Impact of positioning placement

6) Basic Principles of Equipment Layout

a) Control the airflow using a hot-aisle / cold-aisle rack layout
b) Provide access ways that are safe and convenient
c) Align the floor or ceiling tile systems with the equipment
i) Four standard pitches
ii) Choosing the appropriate aisle pitch
d) Special spacing for hard floor environments
e) Minimize isolated IT devices and maximize row lengths
f) Plan the complete equipment layout in advance

7) Floor Planning Sequence

a) Identify and locate room constraints
b) Establish key room-level options
c) Establish the primary IT equipment layout axis
i) Items to ensure
ii) Factors to consider
d) Lock the row boundaries
e) Specify row/cabinet density
f) Identify index points (for new room)
g) Minimize isolated devices and maximize row lengths
h) Specify the floor layout

8) Common Errors in Equipment Layout

a) Failure to plan entire layout in advance

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 b) Ignore support columns when planning
c) Adding partitions without studying the effect on the equipment

9) Summary

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