Internet Initiative Japan Inc. is to commercialise the modular ‘eco-data center’ following the results of its proof of concept testing which it started last year. (See story: IIJ to start proof of concept for air cooled container data center)

The Nasdaq listed company said construction would begin next month. IIJ will initially build five modules and said it will then build out to keep pace with demand for its cloud services offerings.

In a statement the company said: IIJ was the first company in Japan to attempt to test data centers with container units that use outside- air-cooling, and with test results showing a Partial PUE (*1) of under 1.1, their effectiveness has been verified. With those results, IIJ believes it can raise its power usage efficiency to the targeted 1.2 level year round, and so the decision was made to go into commercial production.

IIJ said it will use this data center as a facility for the IIJ GIO cloud service, and will expand those facilities to an estimated 20 modules (housing 5,000 servers) as demand for the service rises. The current investment plan calls for 5 modules (housing 1,600 servers) to be built and operational by February 2011 at a cost of about JPY 1.1 billion.

Starting next fiscal year, the facilities will be expanded to keep pace with demand, and as a next-generation data center that can be rapidly scaled out, one of the characteristics of cloud computing, IIJ will strengthen its ties with local governments and power company groups, and will examine the possibility of opening multiple data centers nationwide.

IIJ believes this data center will reduce the current facility costs of IIJ GIO by 40%, raising the cost competitiveness of the cloud service and reducing annual CO2 emissions by about 4000 tons in comparison with conventional data centers.


The air cooled container proof of concept

IIJ GIO will thus be able to differentiate itself both in cost and environmental benefits as well as maintain its high service quality, which will enable IIJ to expand its market share in the high-growth cloud market. The IIJ Group will continue to promote green IT while actively pursuing the development of advanced data centers that have the lower costs and higher energy efficiency that are most appropriate for the cloud environment. ·

IIJ's definition of a Partial PUE: A partial PUE that does not include the power consumed by UPS, the power distribution board, and other elements. Industry group The Green Grid, which is promoting energy efficiency in data centers, is considering using this as an index of power use efficiency to measure improvements made through use of containers and other devices. PUE (power usage effectiveness), one of the indices used to indicate energy efficiency at conventional data centers, represents the quotient of the total electric power consumption of the data center divided by the electric power consumption of all servers and other IT equipment. Currently, the typical data center is said to have an avarage PUE of about 2.