Compass Datacenters (Dallas, TX) has unveiled its data center product offering, which it claims "re-invents modular data center design." The company was recently founded by Chris Crosby, a co-founder and former senior executive of Digital Realty Trust, to address "the data center industry's narrow geographic focus and limited solution set," which Crosby contends only meets the needs of a select set of companies in a handful of major markets.
"The bulk of the current product offerings available today primarily serve the needs of the provider -- not the customer," asserts Crosby. "They are geographically restricted to the top six markets, they require large building footprints, and they are inefficient in their design, operation and expandability. Our Truly Modular solutions put the customer first by providing them with their own Tier III certified, LEED Gold data center wherever they need it to be."
Compass Datacenters says its patent-pending Truly Modular data center platform is based on four essential components:
-- The centerpiece of each Compass Datacenter facility is the CompassPod, which provides 10,000 square feet of columnless raised floor space supported by 1-1.2 MW of electrical power with 2N power distribution. The company says its mechanical approach with above- and below-floor plenums simultaneously allows very high-density applications with up to 20kW racks without containment (over 400 W/sf), while it is also able to address the lower-density footprint needed for network, patching and storage.
-- The CompassPods are contained within, and protected by, a hardened shell dubbed the CompassStructure, which provides a highly energy-efficient, highly-secure structure for the facility's mission critical IT systems. Features include a white, reflective roof that lowers PUE, a hurricane-resistance up to Miami-Dade County standards of 149 mph winds, a seismic importance factor of 1.5, and a powered primary POP room.
-- Each facility's power is provided by the pre-fabricated, patent-pending CompassPowerCenter module, which provides the UPS (2N), switchgear (2N), and mechanical (N+1) equipment required to ensure uptime and reliability. The module also features a proprietary "Always On Power" cross-tie that maintains power to both the A and B side even during maintenance. Each CompassPowerCenter (A side and B side) is a pre-fabricated steel structure assembled in a factory setting that ensures quality and enables accelerated delivery timeframes for completed data centers. Unlike shipping containers, the CompassPowerCenters are two independent pre-constructed, UL-listed, ADA compliant, hardened steel rooms fully integrated into the CompassStructure.
-- Unique to the Compass platform is the CompassSupport module. Designed for form and function, each CompassSupport module features space to meet the needs of operational staff and logistics for data center operations, including a security center, lobby, office space, loading dock, break area and restrooms. The module also features Compass' "Fishbowl Security" that enables a single security guard to monitor all of the facility's major points of access reducing operating expenses. The company says the modularity of the CompassSupport element "removes the 'co' from wholesale colocation as each support module can be dedicated to an individual customer."
Compass Datacenters' Crosby concludes, "Until now, companies outside the industry's major markets that were seeking advanced data center facilities faced a decision with no attractive options: (1) locate their mission critical IT infrastructure far from their corporate operations and incur major migration and set-up costs; (2) build a costly custom facility with high capital requirements and significant financial risk; or (3) bolt together container solutions to create a makeshift, non-hardened solution on their property. Those are equally poor choices, but we shatter that dilemma, because with our solution we untether the geography and make the data center building the module."
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