Description

Malone University - Data Center Design and Installation

Transcript

My name is Clark Hoopes. I am the Director of Information Technologies at Malone University. I've been at Malone for 14 years. Malone is a Christian university of the arts, sciences and profession in the liberal arts tradition. Malone is located in Canton, OH. Malone currently has just over 2,500 students.

MCPc has provided Malone with excellent service, specifically in the data center project. In our old data center or data centers, which we had two of, we were facing aging infrastructure. We had insufficient power and we had insufficient cooling. There were many a night where we got pages saying that we had high humidity or no humidity, or we had high temperatures above 85 degrees in our data center.

My name is Jim Shaffer I am Senior Network Engineer at Malone University. I had three unique roles in the data center project. During the design phase, I worked with APC engineers to design a solution that fit both our current needs and also provide for adequate growth for the future. During the construction phase, I worked with APC to make sure the equipment was delivered on time and I also coordinated between the local contractors and APC technicians onsite. During the implementation phase, I was responsible for building the network, building the core infrastructure, and providing all network connectivity in the data center.

My name is Adam Klemann. I am the Technology Services Coordinator here at Malone University. My role with the data center was to do some initial planning, work with Jim and Clark and the rest of the team throughout the process to get it done. At the end of the project, when all the construction was done and all APC equipment was set and working properly, I planned the transition.

What was specifically installed in the data center – two rows of racks. They’re outward facing with the hot aisle containment in the middle so the cold air is on the outside and the hot air is on the inside – completely separated, no mixing. Wonderful. Very efficient for our air conditioners. We also put in three air conditioning units with the option to add a fourth in the future if our capacity comes up to that level, and then power distribution units and the 200 KBA generator to back it all up whenever we lose power if there’s a power issue.

The new data center has enabled Malone University to move ahead with several new business initiatives. So MCPc went the second mile and really, really helped us in pulling off this project. MCPc has a tagline: “We make doing business easier.” And it’s true. MCPc worked with us. They helped us meet our needs as far as obtaining equipment on time. They worked with us in financing our data center project. And ultimately we finished on schedule and on budget.