About the requirements
The data center established by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences WIGNER Research Center Csillebérc plays a key role in processessing the data of the Large Hadron Collider of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and in connection with the research of the Higgs boson theory.
CERN ordered a data center from our company, which operates on exceptional quality and applies the latest technology by supporting environmentally friendly infrastructure energy efficiency, and this way, support the dynamically changing needs of research and innovation. A focused, high-energy-density computing and storage capacity required to provide a reference implementation of the upcoming innovative and effective research and information technology projects.
Hungary has successfully applied for a 2,000 m² data center build with four server rooms with the invitation of CERN's 22 member countries regarding to an international tender. The reason of the calling for international tender was that the Swiss Tier-0 (highest) units are not possible to expand in connection with the power consumption and the heat dissipation.
The major task was the design and turnkey construction of the server room, which is not as a greenfield investment, but an existing building reconstruction with specific client needs and references.
In every respect, installing the MTA Wigner Research Center for Physics Csillabérc was a quite logical decision. On the one hand, the researchers of the Institute can use the Research Center resources, on the other hand, the annual average temperature in the area compared to the rest of Budapest is 2 degrees Celsius lower, so economically, the cooling of a robust data center is more feasible.
H1 Systems solution
In cooperation with the MTA Wigner Research Center for Physics, H1 Systems prepared such innovative technical and implementation plans and delivered such solutions during the constructing what directly met with the high-level expectations envisioned by the Research Centre and demanding objectives of CERN.
The volume of the development indicates that the center had to be constructed in an existing building, which has created many barriers, on the other hand, a very short time was available to complete the work. According to the industry best practice, the construction of such a unit takes approximately a year and a half, nonetheless, we had seven months for two server halls to set up and maintaining continuous operation as the others also had to be installed within six months. Needs of the data center cooling indicates that 3,600 kW of heat disposal was necessary from 1,200m².
Hundreds of people worked on the project on-site and beyond, where we needed to reconstruct the existing building which was made in the ’70s, in order to enable to provide the modern IT services on long-term.
Along with overall strengthening of the building skeleton, large windows had to be closed up, pillars had to be strengthen and the roof got a steel frame. The 14-piece, 400 kilowatts cooling weighing 3.5 tons per piece and the 85 tons of steel structure weight the building's pillars. Regarding to the structure, the problem of vibration discharge needed to be solved, with the application of dampeners.
At the end of the work, a redundant, long-distance, 100 gigabit/second bandwidth network connection were realised for the very first time in Europe, that creates a direct connection between the accelerator in Geneva and Wigner data center in Budapest.
Project results
The established data center is one of the region's largest data center regarding to the heating- and power density which surrounded by a redundant, fault-tolerant infrastructure. The power supply provides by two independent medium-voltage source.
Besides basic principles of cooling energy efficiency, cost efficient operation and flexibility are highly represented as well. The uniqueness of the designed system is that condensate does not generated, which means, there is no need for draining off condensed water. All critical components are as much as any temporary loss does not affect the operation of the system.
Wigner data center is relatively stable, can describe with well typified power consumption characteristics, since computers operate day and night. During total operation, the facility simultaneously realises up to 7 megawatts of power consumption. The four primary server hall power supply system is independent from each other. The diesel aggregates have built-in diesel fuel reserve, which means four times 3,500, totally about 14 thousand litres. The racks have double power supply, which are separately uninterruptable. These individually meet the uninterruptable-clearance and the necessary back-up time.
It describes the electrical efficiency of the installation that the PUE value ratio below the average count. As a result of the solutions delivered by H1 Systems, with the entire data center concept creation, including design and construction activities regarding to all expertise, a world-class European research infrastructure created within 7 month, in record time.
Summary
Client: Hungarian Academy of Sciences Wigner Research Centre Task: Preparation of a new data center construction design, delivering the concept, complete reconstructing of an existing building. About the project: Holistic coordination of legislations, standards, SLA special system compliance, architectural, operation systems, electrical systems. Results: Turnkey construction of a primary CERN data center in Hungary, after winning an international tender. Project in numbers: 8 MVA power capacity, 14x400 kW liquid cooling, 4 diesel aggregator, 23 km copper cable, 60 km optical cable, 5600 kW cooling capacity, 70,000 litre cooling water, 22,000 litre glycol, 3 kW W/ m² Project contact on the client side: Domonkos Szabó H1 Systems team: Tamás Balogh, Head of Business Development, Csaba Szanyi-Feri- Head of Implementation, Zoltán Béres - adatközponti szakértő, Szilárd Kiss - Head of System Operations, Károly Nagy - Project Manager, Gyula Oláh - Senior System Operations Engineer