Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 21, 2010,
Item 23
Ready for 23? 23, receive presentation from the broaddus and associates team.
>> good morning, judge and commissioners, rodney rhoades, planning and budget. This is the last of the program components of the master planning efforts for the central campus that we are bringing to you today. This is the data center component of the master plan. We have gone and looked at multiple sites. We had conversation regarding the needs for the data center. We have reviewed multiple sites, both county owned as well as private owned facilities. And have determined that we would like to propose as a part of the master planning effort that the data center remain in the central campus on county-owned land. So we're asking for three things. Number one, the data center approval from the commissioners court and steven will go through that along with the data com folks there that are here today. We're asking you to approve the concept of the primary data center being the downtown central campus area. And we're asking approval for conceptual ideas going forward for the location of the data center to be on block 126, which is the usb site directly across the street from the granger building, as a component of that site redevelopment. Not the entire site specifically for the data center, but as a component of the redevelopment of block 126. And so those are the three things that we're asking for today. Again, this is the final program piece of the master planning effort. We will use this information if approved today to go forward with our development of our scenarios that we'll be presenting to the commissioners court in a organization session on the 30th of this -- a work session on the 30th of this month. And then to go to a work session, if you will, with elected and appointed officials in the county on october 1 at the capitol. And then we will hold on october 2nd a public charette that will provide an opportunity for the public to come and see the various scenarios that are being developed, this being a part of those scenarios as well as comment, and we will actually take input in terms of the preferred scenarios. With that i'm going to turn it over to steven and i'll let him go there the data centerpiece and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
>> good morning, commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> i'm steven coleston. I'm joined by john lewis.
>> [no mic on].
>> joe harlow and the rest of the team kind of really understanding what the issues were associated with the existing facilities and the infrastructure thereof. And what became glaringly apparent which i think you are aware of is the current capacity is really being defeated and their extraordinary limitations tore growth and the mechanical and electrical systems supporting the systems themselves are stressed to the limit and there's really not adequate space to accommodate the projections for the personnel that are using that space as well as the technical requirements. We looked, just like we have with all the programmatic issues, to the 2015 and 25 and 2035 projections, looking at how the typical impacts on staff and projected county growth would affect the data infrastructure as the county begins to grow. Even recognizing that in part of what wee deal with as we're dealing with technology is a little bit of crystal balling effect when we think long term about. And then one of the things that the analysis of the existing facilities and constraints determined, one of the determining outcomes was that we were able to confirm that an alternative site to really look at a long-term consolidation needs of the data center were going to be required. We also went through a process of developing a site selection matrix, and john, you may want to talk about some of those aspects.
>> i'd be glad to do that. The best industry practices today follow up time institute standards and this is a group that sets up the reliability standards for data centers through reliability and how much up time they are supposed to have. So we came up with a method, a matrix to allow them to analyze the potential sites that they would view and select from. We gave them a grading criteria. Some of the basic criteria would be separation from major highway corridors, above the fema 100-year flood plain, itself, and then actual consideration of industrial issues and chemicals in near proximity. And the size of the data center has been set to be 8,000 square feet, plus support areas. That's the overall data center.
>> what you see on this next slide is the summary and there are databases which we will walk you through in just a moment, but here's a summary following kind of our similar programmatic projections associated with the years 2015, 25 and 2035. But we project down to the net assignable square feet, the equipment gallery additions and total growth projections estimated over time for current need, 2015, 2025 and 2035 for 20,000 gross square feet for the data center and its components. That does not include the correlation of the i.t.s. Staff and those office spaces which are included in the general government program. So as we -- at one point in time we were considering the potential of a completing off site for the central campus data center as a component so we went through an exercise of considering i.t.s. Moving out of the downtown area based on the outcome of the sight selection matrix, you are looking at the data center and the i.t.s. Staff being committee habitated. As we move into the next planning charettes, we'll be -- back to the rest of the staff projections. The programmatic requirements essentially address a lot of the support space as well as some of the technical areas. In essence, in order to get an 8,000 square foot data center in the future, that's the total size of the data center, we would have to go in with that amount of what we call white space, the space up front. And we could build it out being phase 1 about 4,000 square feet is what the estimation is. Phase 2 would be another 2,000 and phase 3 would be the total amount for that buildout. It's a modular build out. The mechanical, the electrical, all the power is being able to support the system and is installed in the initial phasing. And it's incrementally added over the end. When we see the rom costs toward the end of the presentation, you'll see what portions were added at a later time. So this equipment gallery is what all the computer room air conditioning units will be located in that will provide the cooling for those devices. And then the square foot calculation that we came up with or as i mention we've got the 4,000 initial 2015, and then 6,000 at 2025, and then the total 8,000 at 2035.
>> so if you see the full schematic on the next slide, the one on the left is essentially showing a concept schematic of a full buildout of the entire data center out to the 2035 projections. And i just came back to loudness here. The -- and so what you see in this area right in here, if you can kind of follow the cursor is the computer room equipment floor which is enlarged on the right-hand side. So the big box up to the top of the slide is mechanical, electrical space which would be shelled out space intended to accommodate additional equipment that would be added over time as the -- as the data center would grow. The dashed area outside that would require technical yard and equipment to support that in terms of cooling towers. And then the smaller boxes that you see kind of flanking around the edge of the enlarged computer room floor are the support spaces such as the loading dock, network operation center, conference meeting space that would be accommodated associated next to that. So john, you kind of describe a little of the enlarged computer room floor, if you like.
>> yes. If you look at the very center of the diagram on the right, you see that's what we call the equipment gallery. That's where the computer room air handlers and the power distribution units can be located to support the devices on both sides. Initially as we say in modular fashion, the left-hand side could be phase 1, and then phase 2 could be the lower right quadrant, and then the final phase the upper quadrant. But the idea is to have the amount of space, the power and the cooling for the future capacity up front.
>> so in conclusion, we developed rough order of magnitude cost projections associated with capital investment. The first line item, site building, the real, you know, bricks and mortar component of this, which is something you really kind of only build once, including accommodation for the future shelf space that would be built into over time as the equipment grows and the need grows, and you adjust that as the county staff or requirements grow. However, as we start looking at the infrastructure components, both on the data center infrastructure and on the mechanical-electrical infrastructure, there's some significant first costs associated with the mechanical components, with the chillers, et cetera, that go in there. Then as you notice on line item 3, as the data center incrementally grows, as john just described on the schematic previous, there's incremental addition of date take construct structure and mechanical-electrical infrastructure to support and service that equipment. And then the next line item is furniture, fixtures and equipment associated with building itself, which is really -- really accommodating the office space in that initial component and then we have a contingency described and backup provides a little more detail associated with that. Rodney.
>> that is the program components of the recommendations that you have before you. Again, what we are looking for today, if possible, is the approval of the data center program and the idea of the primary data center being located in the central campus, and then, of course, as i mentioned earlier, the conceptual idea of block 126 being the location of the data center as a component piece of that redevelopment effort. I also want to take a minute, if i could, to thank belinda and leslie and especially joe and his staff for working through this over the last few months. They have worked tirelessly not only on the master planning piece but also on this data center component. And steven and his crew have also contributed, as usual, to pulling all this together. But they have worked very hard on trying to get this pulled together for you. With that, we're happy to answer any questions you might have.
>> first of all, i commend the planning for the enhanced appropriate secure data center. I have one question. What is the rationale for abandoning the off-site center in favor of a downtown high-cost real estate location?
>> we had talked about as we were looking for outside locations, it became apparent to us in terms of overall costs that building this as a component piece of some of the downtown redevelopment efforts that we are looking at in our scenario development, that incorporating that into those redevelopment efforts seemed to just make sense from an overall cost perspective. We anticipate that block 126, for example, will be redeveloped and we think it can provide for a long-term standpoint kind of what i call to be an anchor of our central campus redevelopment efforts. And having the data center as a piece of that redevelopment everyday just seemed to make sense to from an overall cost perspective, and so that's why the recommendations for the most part are being made.
>> also did allow for an operational objective which was to initially one of joe harlow's recommendations was to try to consolidate his staff around a data center element. And initially it looked like that was going to be an objective we wouldn't be able to achieve. But we have tried to weigh the pros and cons fairly. We looked at 12 sites and we looked at a number of third-party hosting sites. We've gone back and forth on a series of analysis trying to come up with the best plan. We think that the overall scenarios shows the space is available in the next 35-year period for this development to occur. It doesn't address yet perhaps, you know, disaster recovery or some other long-term initiatives that that site could grow into over time. But that we -- we did feel it was a good fit for the amount of development that we can see occurring on block 126.
>> it's nor the other county-owned sites, operationally there were issues in terms of getting power, cooling, whatever it may be for each individual site that we evaluated, there were just some other issues that played into not necessarily being able to recommend a county-owned site outside of the downtown core, and as belinda said, it fit within our square footage needs. It is on a site that is owned by the county and we believe that it would be an appropriate fit.
>> what is the required separation from major highway corridors and criteria because it seems to this is in a busy location and given security concerns we have, i just wonder how that fits into it.
>> the up time institute uses that as a criteria to -- you've got a lot of potential trucks with -- that could have chemical damage, explosions and things like that, you know, if they are routing through the main highway corridor she that's what they are talking about. So the proximity to that corridor is something that you would gauge in relation so one site or another. And you weigh your risk. Accordingly.
>> like an interstate highway.
>> interstate highway for the most part.
>> we don't have to worry about terrorist activities.
>> i hope not.
>> i think we're in the hot bed of everything here so i worry about our secure data being exposed.
>> i'll need another week.
>> not a problem.
>> i don't know that it's necessary to have everybody back, but i can get my questions answered probably between now and next tuesday.
>> no problem. We'll be happy to answer any questions you might have, judge.
>> anything else on this item? Questions, comments? Thank you all very much.
>> thank you, sir.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:57 PM
