Compass Datacenters Reinvents the Modular Data Center

Truly Modular™ Design Makes State-of-the-Art Data Center Facilities Available in Any Geographic Area

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May 03, 2012, 07:50 ET

DALLAS, May 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Compass Datacenters today unveiled the company's new data center product offering, which reinvents modular data center design. Compass Datacenters was recently founded by Chris Crosby, a co-founder and former senior executive of Digital Realty Trust, to address the data center industry's narrow geographic focus and limited solution set, which only meets the needs of a very select set of companies in a handful of major markets.

"The bulk of the current product offerings available today primarily serve the needs of the provider—not the customer. They are geographically restricted to the top six markets, they require large building footprints, and they are inefficient in their design, operation and expandability. Our Truly Modular solutions put the customer first by providing them with their own Tier III certified*, LEED Gold data center wherever they need it to be," said Chris Crosby, Founder and CEO of Compass Datacenters.

"Until now, companies outside the industry's major markets that were seeking advanced data center facilities faced a decision with no attractive options: (1) locate their mission critical IT infrastructure far from their corporate operations and incur major migration and set-up costs; (2) build a costly custom facility with high capital requirements and significant financial risk; or (3) bolt together container solutions to create a makeshift, non-hardened solution on their property," added Crosby. "Those are equally poor choices, but we shatter that dilemma because with our solution we untether the geography and make the data center building the module."

Truly Modular Data Centers
The patent-pending Compass Datacenters' Truly Modular™ data center solution is based on four basic building blocks:

CompassPod™ – The centerpiece of each Compass Datacenter facility is the CompassPod, which provides 10,000 square feet of columnless raised floor space supported by 1-1.2 MW of electrical power with 2N power distribution. The mechanical approach with above- and below-floor plenums simultaneously allows very high-density applications with up to 20kW racks without containment (over 400 W/sf) while it is also able to address the lower-density footprint needed for network, patching and storage.
CompassStructure™ – CompassPods are contained within, and protected by, the CompassStructure's hardened shell, which provides a highly energy-efficient, highly-secure structure for the facility's mission critical IT systems. Features include a white, reflective roof that lowers PUE, a hurricane-resistance up to Miami-Dade County standards of 149 mph winds, a seismic importance factor of 1.5, and a powered primary POP room.
CompassPowerCenter™ – The facility's power is provided by the pre-fabricated, patent-pending CompassPowerCenter module, which provides the UPS (2N), switchgear (2N), and mechanical (N+1) equipment required to ensure uptime and reliability. The module also features Compass' elegant "Always On Power"™ cross-tie that maintains power to both the A and B side even during maintenance. Each CompassPowerCenter (A side and B side) is a pre-fabricated steel structure assembled in a factory setting that ensures quality and enables accelerated delivery timeframes for completed data centers. Unlike shipping containers, the CompassPowerCenters are two independent pre-constructed, UL-listed*, ADA compliant, hardened steel rooms fully integrated into the CompassStructure.
CompassSupport™ – Unique to Compass is our CompassSupport module. Designed for form and function, each CompassSupport module features space to meet the needs of operational staff and logistics for data center operations, including a security center, lobby, office space, loading dock, break area and restrooms. The module also features Compass' Fishbowl Security™ that enables a single security guard to monitor all of the facility's major points of access reducing operating expenses. The modularity of CompassSupport removes the "co" from wholesale colocation as each support module can be dedicated to an individual customer.

Branding
The Compass solution also offers customers a unique marketing capability. Each customer has the chance to brand its Compass Data Center with their own logo(s) and color scheme to better integrate the facility into their marketing and sales efforts or their corporate branding standards.

Designed with Simplified IT Capacity Planning in Mind
Compass Datacenter solutions are designed for simplified expansion with CompassConnect. For companies seeking future proof IT capacity planning, Compass Datacenters' facilities are easily expandable via the company's CompassConnect capability, which is built into each CompassPod/CompassStructure tandem. This enables customers to easily expand their facilities without the need for risky in-building construction. Compass has modularized the building without sacrificing the customer's ability to grow within their own hardened facility while maintaining rack layout and power density flexibility.

Robust Reliability and Energy Efficiency
"Every LEED Gold Truly Modular Data Center is based upon an Uptime Institute's Tier III certified* design that enables customers to have a highly reliable and sustainable solution where their business requires it to be located. They are also assured of cost-effective ongoing operations as a result of our Minimum Load, Maximum Performance™ architecture, which delivers a PUE of 1.2 - 1.5** or lower at loads as low as 25 percent," said Crosby. "This groundbreaking strategy flattens the PUE curve and addresses the reality that most data centers do not run at 90-100 percent load, which is what the advertised PUE of facilities from competitors is based on. At lower loads, the PUE for those competing solutions is actually much higher because they are not designed for efficiency at lower loads. But Compass Datacenters are highly energy efficient even at very low loads, saving our customers a significant amount of money on operating costs."

Lower Cost and Multiple Options
"Due to the efficiency of the Truly Modular solution, the price tag for these facilities is markedly lower than build-to-suit or do-it-yourself projects and compares favorably to existing pricing in the major markets. By enabling customers to have their own dedicated facility beginning with just 1.0-1.2 MWs, we also address the most common capacity requirement. This is a powerful contrast to the larger capacity requirements typically necessary to become an anchor tenant in a multi-tenant facility. Delivery is much faster, too, with only 150 days from site planning to final delivery," said Crosby. "Unlike our competitors, we also provide our customers with the option to lease or purchase the facility and to either operate it themselves or have us do it."

For more information about Compass Datacenters' Truly Modular data centers, download the white paper here: www.compassdatacenters.com/compass-university.

*In process.
**Depends on climate.

About Compass Datacenters
Compass Datacenters builds and operates Truly Modular™ data centers that provide customers with dedicated solutions where they need them. The innovative design of its facilities make it possible for Compass Datacenters to deliver state-of-the-art solutions for customers anywhere in the United States, serving the vast majority of companies that are not located in the few markets where geographically-constrained data center facilities are currently concentrated. For more information, visit www.compassdatacenters.com.

SOURCE Compass Datacenters