Data Center Construction Costs

When considering the expenses of building and the ongoing management of a data center, you can usually bank on about sixty to eighty percent of your investment going to:

• Telecommunications cabling and systems
• Ventilation and cooling systems
• Electrical cabling and related equipment
• Electronic security systems

There are some critical data center construction costs which take a back seat in the minds of many data center executives during the design and planning phases leading up to breaking ground for construction.

Here are six significant capital costs you should consider when preparing your data center business plan.

1. Structural Elements: Just like the human body needs to have air, blood circulation, and a nervous system, it wouldn’t function without skeletal structure. The overall weight of servers, racks, cooling ducts, and cabling in a data center needs strong “bones” to support the load, with minimal impact on available space. The raised flooring, walls, and high ceilings of well-designed facilities need to be built to withstand earthquakes and extreme weather such as hurricanes or tornadoes. Using columns, beams, and other framing materials which don’t just meet, but exceed standards will protect your investment, and possibly reduce insurance costs or provide you with opportunities to win the trust of prospective clients.
2. Office Space for Clients Working Onsite: Your clients will often need to set up a temporary work space while getting their gear installed and tested. Providing conference rooms or desk space for development and testing and other amenities for clients when they come onsite is often forgotten, but an important value add. These facilities can also serve your own needs, when hosting data center tours, interviewing personnel, and having planning meetings for on-boarding new customers.
3. Modular, Adaptable Racking: Server hardware refreshes, upgrades, and expansions can occur frequently in a successful data center. Installing server racks and surrounding walls which can adapt to changing client needs can be another value-added service to differentiate your data center from your competition. Scalability to provide higher tiers of service, ranging from co location to managed, and fully managed Network Operating Center (NOC) monitored services, requires a facility which can be configured in multiple different ways. Racks which can be expanded and clustered, to adapt to changing capacity requirements is important.
4. A Strong Foundation: Just like structural elements, the concrete foundation which supports a data center is vital. For purposes of load bearing, lessening the impact of earthquakes, and providing opportunities for raised floors for cabling are elements of construction which should be considered early in the design process.
5. Fire Detection and Suppression Equipment: With all the electrical systems which power a data center and the backup systems, should primary systems fail, wet and dry fire suppression equipment needs to be widely available. Smoke and fire detection systems need to alert both onsite staff as well as local first responders to prevent extensive damage.
6. Site Logistics Costs: Where a data center is located relative to local airports, shipping routes, telecommunications infrastructure, and power lines are all considerations outside of a data center proper. Should you need to arrange for significant new cabling and the excavation costs to go with it, you could need to significantly adjust your construction budget.