High-density fibre & rack solution for Equinix France

Equinix France services more than 250 colocation customers from four International Business Exchange™ data centres with a total floor space of more than 32,000 square metres. These state-of-the art data centres fully comply with the most stringent international standards for information security, including ISO/IEC 27001:2005 and PCI DSS. Equinix France provides colocation customers an extensive services portfolio that ranges from infrastructure design, network administration and cloud optimisation, to remote data centre management via the Equinix Smart Hands™ support team.

50U AND 52U RACKS FOR BLADE SERVERS

In 2008, the first Minkels Cold Corridor® was deployed in one of the Equinix France data centres to create energy-efficiency that meets the global Equinix organisation’s savings needs. Over the years, Minkels has worked very closely with Equinix France to provide fully tailored Cold Corridors® and hundreds of Minkels racks, which are fully adaptable to the individual and dynamic needs of Equinix customers.

Meanwhile, cloud computing and virtualisation, as well as big data and the increasing interaction between (cloud and digital media) networks, have significantly increased the energy density in the data centres. This forced Equinix France to come up with a new high-density colocation & connectivity solution in 2015, a solution that could support these blade servers in a very energy-efficient manner. The international team at Minkels, including Minkels France and experts from the corporate office in the Netherlands, then designed extra-reinforced 50U and 52U racks that hold 4 blade servers with a capacity of up to 15 kW.

MONITORING, SECURITY AND R&D

“Our customers’ IT challenges demand very flexible data centre solutions,” says Mokrane Lamari, Head of Sales Engineering – Equinix France. “Luckily, Minkels has a very strong R&D team. The Minkels team has worked with us very closely to develop this innovative rack and high-density fibre solution, adapted to customers’ most demanding needs. This R&D department is closely tied to the Minkels production team and delivers the agile solutions that are necessary to meet the evolving requirements of Equinix customers. Their expertise in power, cooling, fibre and housing, along with their involvement, is exceedingly high. Our own engineers, solutions architects and project managers appreciate being able to turn to them. The partnership between Minkels and Equinix is a true strategic partnership in my view.”

Minkels R&D developed the extra tall and reinforced racks for blade servers including the cable management solution specifically for high-density network applications. They supplied integrated carrier network core nodes for a total of 800 high density racks in France. Minkels also implemented a monitoring solution specifically made for high-density monitoring, including the placement of sensors in the racks to measure power, temperature and humidity. What’s more, the racks meet the enhanced security requirements that Equinix France demands of its housing equipment for high density applications.

MINKELS/LEGRAND PRODUCT PORTFOLIO

Equinix France makes use of Minkels Next Generation Cold Corridors® to house the high-density racks in an energy-efficient aisle containment environment. The highly modular design in the construction details of this Cold Corridor creates the flexibility to provide a seamlessly perfect fit for the extra tall racks. “The IT infrastructures of our customers demand energy-efficiency and flexibility,” says Lamari. “That is why we use the Minkels Next Generation Cold Corridors. This solution has a modular design, which makes it easy to customise when it comes to housing storage, robotics and SAN equipment. The tight integration with sensors for monitoring environmental conditions is also particularly important for our activities.”

Moreover, the Operations Manager of Equinix France is pleased that the Minkels brand is part of the global Legrand organisation. “We benefit immensely from the combined Minkels and Legrand data centre portfolio. Since Legrand acquired Minkels, we have been able to substantially expand the product catalogue we use. The fact that Legrand is also an Equinix customer naturally makes the relationship extra special.”