They will build a modular data centre with a cooling system that directly uses outside air, and operate it for one year starting in February 2010, with the aim of commercialization. This will be the first data centre in Japan with a container unit cooled all year round by outside air.

IIJ had been considering the use of a chilled-water-cooled container unit, but with the trend in the United States away from water-cooled systems and towards the more energy-efficient outside-air-cooled systems, they realized that they could not focus solely on one single method geared towards environmental measures and improved power efficiency. They thus decided to embark on this test in order to find the most appropriate method for the installation environment.

IIJ will use its know-how - garnered from the operation of 15 data centres nationwide - to design a next-generation data centre model that is aimed at achieving the scalability, low costs, and energy efficiency demanded by Cloud computing. Based on this model, NLM ECAL will develop a container shell, with Toshiba supplying the outside-air cooling equipment, Nohmi Bosai providing the fire-prevention equipment, and Kawamura Electric providing the racks and power equipment.

The outside-air-cooled container unit developed for this test is expected to have the following benefits:

1. Lower facility costs: Year-round outside-air cooling will reduce air-conditioning equipment costs, and use of the container unit will reduce construction and housing costs. This combination is intended to reduce facility costs by as much as 40% in comparison with traditional data centers, and to reduce the initial capital investment.

2. Shorter installation period: Modularization of the facilities will enable the construction time to be shortened. Because data centre facilities can be expanded to meet demand, it will be easy to scale out the Cloud environment.

3. Increased efficiency through high-density server mounting: In the average data centre today, the maximum power amount is restricted to about 3 KVA per rack, in order to avoid heat problems. With an outside-air-cooled container unit, the increased cooling capacity will allow for up to 10 KVA per rack, making it possible to increase the IT device density to as much as three times that of conventional data centres.

4. Maximizing power efficiency - achieving a PUE of less than 1.2: The PUE value indicates the power efficiency of a data centre, and today's average data centre is said to have a PUE of about 2. The test site will use outside-air-cooling equipment to reduce energy consumption, with the aim of achieving a PUE of 1.2 or better. Commercial data centres that use outside-air-cooled container units can expect a 40% reduction in power consumption, which translates to a 40% reduction in electric power costs. It is also intended that during the commercialization process the use of natural energy sources that eliminate CO2 emissions, such as hydro-electric and solar power, will be investigated.

Electric power is the largest cost factor in data centre operation, with about 40% of this going towards the air-conditioning system required to counter the heat generated by the IT equipment. Thus, power shortages and increased cooling efficiency are important issues for today's data centres, and in terms of the promotion of green IT, the creation of energy-efficient data centres is an urgent goal. In addition, the growing need for next-generation data centres that are low-cost and scalable - two Cloud characteristics - has inspired this project.

While conducting this test, IIJ will examine the potential for commercialization. The company will begin constructing a commercial system in April 2010 with the goal of putting a data centre with 4000 servers into operation by March 2011. This data centre will reduce the facility costs of IIJ's Cloud service IIJ GIO by 40%, raising IIJ's cost competitiveness and reducing annual CO2 output by about 4000 tons in comparison with conventional data centres. IIJ is considering the eco-data centre park concept, which would also enable other service providers, such as SI partners and data center operators, to use the facilities.