With the increasing focus on controlling capital and operating expenses
(capex and opex) while enabling data center growth that fits the
immediate business needs ("right-sizing"), modularity has become a
hot design trend. But modularity can, and in many cases should, extend
beyond simply replicating only the same elements (power-distribution
units, racks, cooling units and so on): a heterogeneous approach can
garner tremendous cost savings over a homogeneous one. In particular,
multiple availability tiers brings right-sizing to the various data center
tasks rather than treating the facility as a monolithic structure designed
to accomplish what amounts to a single task.
THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 13
www.datacenterjournal.com
