It is pleasantly cool behind the sliding door. Like in a changing room, the black boxes face each other in two long rows. The ventilation hums quietly. Otherwise it’s still pretty quiet. But that could change soon. In the coming weeks and months, the server room in the new MU4 data center in Aschheim will fill up. Each of the metal cabinets, called racks, secured with a combination lock can theoretically hold around six to seven server elements. A third of the capacity in the 825 server racks so far has already been allocated. This is where companies store their data, safely stored but accessible to authorized persons at all times. That is the promise of the operating company Equinix.
In February, the US company put the data center in the Aschheim industrial park into operation, after almost two years of construction. The gleaming concrete cube is secured by a fence, and chimneys rise skyward from the roof. According to Equinix, it has invested around 90 million US dollars, i.e. a good 82 million euros, in the construction. It is the company’s 13th location in Germany. A suitable environment was found in Aschheim for another mainstay in the Munich region – right on the border of the state capital with many large companies from the automotive, financial and healthcare sectors, which represent interesting customers with their constantly growing need for digital data storage and fast connections . There is also space for a later expansion: The usable area, which is now around 2,270 square meters, is to be increased to 12,700 square meters in the last planned expansion stage. A total of up to 4700 racks should then be available. There is also enough electricity in Aschheim – provider Bayernwerk has made improvements and laid new lines. The data center now has a connection and cooling capacity of four megawatts.
The gleaming cube of the building is to be planted later.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Due to the corona pandemic, data centers have become the focus of attention. Everyone suddenly needed capacity for video conferencing or exchanging files via the virtual cloud. Even the authorities are increasingly relying on virtual services. “The entire public administration is currently trying to digitize, which requires a lot of data,” says Jens-Peter Feidner, Managing Director of Equinix Germany. Equinix has specialized in so-called co-location and interconnection offers. This means individual customers can connect directly to other companies within the Equinix network without having to go over the Internet. “We act like a castle courtyard: We offer our customers a secure marketplace where they can exchange ideas and do business,” says Feidner. The demand is obviously high. According to the managing director, talks are being held with a supplier from the automotive industry who would like to have his project on the subject of artificial intelligence secured in Aschheim.
According to the company, it intends to operate its centers in a climate-neutral manner by 2030
With increasing digitization, the number of data centers in Germany has increased significantly in recent years. In a study published in 2022, the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitcom) assumes that there are now a total of around 50,000 data centers in Germany, including small IT installations and server rooms. According to the association, there are around 3,000 large data centers with at least 40 kilowatts of connected IT power, including around 900 very large ones that offer more than five megawatts of connected IT power.
Of course, more and more data centers also require more and more electricity to operate. According to the Bitcom study, the annual energy requirements of all small and large data centers in Germany have increased from around 10.5 billion kilowatt hours to 16 billion kilowatt hours in 2020. For comparison: a modern refrigerator with a freezer compartment consumes around 150 kilowatt hours per year. A key issue for modern data centers is therefore sustainability. Equinix has set itself high goals for this: According to the company, it wants to operate its centers in a climate-neutral manner by 2030. Among other things, research is being carried out into using fuel cells and hydrogen as an energy source. The individual locations also use green electricity.
The cooling system – here pipes for cooling water and recooling systems on the roof – is like the lungs and kidneys of a data center.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Like other Equinix buildings in Frankfurt, the building in Aschheim will have greenery on part of the outer facade for natural cooling. In addition, Feidner explains, further adjustments are being made within the building to reduce energy requirements. After all expansions, the data center should have a power-usage-effectiveness factor (PUE) of 1.2, which means that for every kilowatt hour of electricity that a customer needs for IT connection power, the operation of the data center consumes an additional 0.2 kilowatt hours . Because if you look at the IT components such as server cabinets and cable boxes as the heart of a data center, then the building technology, especially the cooling system, is lungs and kidneys: only if they work constantly can the servers run safely. So the real limit to the capacity of a data center is cooling.
In Aschheim, this task is the responsibility of a sophisticated system. Machines are housed in large gray boxes on the roof, which cool water with refrigerant, which then flows into heat exchangers in the server rooms, absorbs the heat generated there and transports it back upstairs. There is also air conditioning with air filters. “Up to an outside temperature of 17 degrees Celsius, we can cool with outside air alone, without electricity,” explains Christian Kaess, site manager of the Munich Equinix centers. On warmer days, additional energy expenditure is required.
Site manager Christian Kaess controls the power distribution.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Electricity and cooling are doubly secured, and in the event of a power failure, an emergency generator on the roof with four diesel engines and a battery will start immediately. “Everything is built redundantly,” says Kaess. “But we hope, of course, that we won’t need these machines.” Excess waste heat has so far been released into the air. For this purpose, however, he is in talks with the community and some surrounding companies, says managing director Feidner, about ways to use the waste heat to heat neighboring hotel or office buildings, for example by means of a local heating network. The use of photovoltaics is also being examined for some locations. “The biggest challenge for us data center operators are actually warmer summers,” says Feidner.