Basis Bay launched two of its newest data centres – Basis Bay Data Centre (BDC) Cyberjaya and BDC Glenmarie – at a ceremony at BDC Cyberjaya on 18 August, officiated by Datuk Dr. Maximus Ongkili, Malaysia's Minister of Science Technology and Innovation.

Both data centres are built in line with Basis Bay's tagline, Reengineering IT for a greener world – where the green approach has been part of its business -- and its corporate philosophy of being socially responsible, environmentally friendly and economically viable all at the same time.

Before it launched these two green data centres, it already had two data centres in the Temashya Industrial park in Shah Alam an dthe Kulim Hi Tech Park in Kedah.

These two new data centres in Cyberjaya and Glenmarie occupy a total of 100,000 sq ft and provide server co-location, hosting, disaster recovery, business continuity management, remote infrastructure management and cloud computing services. The two are Tier IV enables with fully redundant components and environmentally conscious features.

“Data centres have long been criticised by environmentalists for its high energy consumption and to an extent its direct contribution to greenhouse gas emissions but in  an economy driven by global enterprise computing, data centres have become indispensable as outsourcing is recognised as a vital tool to accelerate business growth and enable efficiencies.,” said Dato' Praba Thiagarajah, Basis Bay Group chief executive officer.

“Especially with technology trends such as software as as service (SaaS) and cloud computing pushing up demand for sophisticated data centre infrastructure facilities and the emergence of ‘green’ regulatory requirements in the West. More and more businesses are looking for outsource partners who not only provide  IT outsourcing infrastructure services but which can can also help them reduce their carbon footprint, without the need for high capital outlay and time lag necessary to build a data centre of that standard from scratch.

“Hence, Basis Bay's answer to this dilemma is to build data centres which are as efficient as possible in terms of their power utilisation and are environmentally friendly as possible in terms of any direct gaseous or liquid emissions to the environment,” he added.

A recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report states that the energy consumption of data centres (and servers) has doubled in the past five years and is expected to almost double again in the next five years, so the conservation of energy is a prime concern for companies like Basis Bay.

More specifically

T Rajan, Basis Bay Properties technical director explained the green features of its new data centres more specifically.

Their design closely matches the criteria outlined by The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Institute and the Uptime Institute, the authority in Data Centre certification.

Their features can be divided into three aspects – namely architectural, civil and structural, and mechanical and electrical.

The architectural aspect employs some pretty common sense principles to keep heat out to minimse load on its air conditioning syste.

The building is oriented in the north-south direction to avoid the rising and setting sun and keep the building naturally cool and reduce cooling costs. It's roof is designed to be like a bathtub or more specifically a well, with a 20 metre wall running all around it so that the roof only receives the full force of sunlight around midday, which also minmises overall heat exposure, whilst to reduce heat absorbtion to the floor below, a 50mm thick polyurethane foam insulation with a density 2 pounds per square foot is  applied to the underside of floor slab and on the floor slab below.

It  also has a tinted glass façade and blinds installed at strategic locations to allow natural visible light in to provide natural lighting during daytime, whist it prevents the entry of of ultra violet andinfra-red rays which cause heating, all of which help to keep cooling costs low along with improved aesthetics of the building.

As for its civil and structural aspects, whilst Basis Bay  followed the guidelines provided by international bodies like Uptime Institute and the LEED Institute mentioned above, since there is no single authority on green dats centres, it paved the way for Malaysian companies to marry the best practices of each area in data centre buildings and green buildings and applied them to  BDC – Cyberjaya as its showcase project.

“The double brick cavity wall with cement and plaster on both sides comes complete with 50mm thick “PGF” thermal and sound insulation in between. We’ve also incorporated special features – for example  aluminium colourbond scupper channel drain to prevent a drastic change in temperature between the inside and outside of the data centre,” said Rajan.

Paints and sealants without volatile organic compounds are used in the building, as well as porous and reflective materials in its construction avoid heat absorbtion.

Its diesel fuel bulk storage tank for its standby generators is located above ground to avoid the possibility of leakage into the underground water table or soil, whilst a grease trap prevents excess diesel spillage into the drain and it can collect these spillage and dispose of them in a responsible manner.

In addition, it plans to store storm and ran water in a holding tank underground and use this water for its gardens and plants, as well as to flus its toilets and urinals to reduce demand on the municipal water supply.

As for its mechanical and electrical aspects, the data centre uses photovoltaic (PV) solar powered street lighting poles to help reduce the electrical consumption to light up its compound, the batteries of which can last for three consecutive days without sunlight, when operated for a maximum of 12 hours per day.

Basis Bay will not use central switching on and off of all lights but rather has  carefully planned strategic switches that are well positioned according to our workflow and layout requirements, so that at any given point, there will not be an entire floor that is lit up, whilst even for aesthetic effects, it uses  a 2amps energy efficient ‘Halo’ light around the rooftop.   

The data centre's energy-efficient computer room air conditioning on average uses 45% less power,as well as environmentally-friendly recycled materials and an ecocologically-compatible refrigerant and the hot air from the air conditioner will be use to provide hot water to the toilets in the building.

Sensor lights will automatically be switched on in working areas and switched off when not required. to furthersave energy. These features will be incorporated in stages.

Whilst keeping external heat out is an aspect of green data centres, the servers and computer equipment within them are great heat sources as well, especially when thousands of them are concentrated in one place.

Well, Basis Bay's Jazz Series servers are designed to be green, in terms of their power consumption and heat generation, though that's beyond the scope of this article.

CEO Dato' Praba estimates that these green initiatives can save between 20% and 30% of costs, depending on the servers and other equipment hosted within. These data centre's centralised monitoring system monitors the temperature around diferent devices and adjust the cooling inthe vicinity accordingly.

Basis Bay has always been engaged in green-related businesses since it started in 1996 as a refurbisher and vendor of used enterprise mainframe and minicomputer, server and communications equipment.

It also provides engineering and maintenance services which help prolong the lifespan of the equipment, as well as data centre building solutions through consultation, planning, design, construction and facilities management services.