Meeting Critical Building and Safety Requirements with DSI
In downtown Los Angeles, where space is expensive, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) faced a daunting challenge. Responsible for ensuring compliance with an array of codes and laws related to construction and safety, they required a new data center in an existing building that could match its mission and overcome the limitations.
The data center team at LADBS found the perfect allies in Data Specialties Inc. (DSI) and Hewlett-Packard—who together designed and built a state-of-the-art data center that meets LADBS’s IT needs for the next decade and upholds the building’s stringent fire and life safety requirements.
A critical aspect of this project was ensuring that the IT load could seamlessly transition to the fire and life safety emergency generator in case of a utility failure. To accomplish this, DSI and HP implemented load-shedding controls to prioritize fire and life safety operations.
The redesigned data center boasts cutting-edge redundancies, such as:
- Redundant 250kW UPS systems: Each equipped with redundant battery strings, these uninterruptible power supply systems guarantee uninterrupted service even in the face of power disruptions.
- Redundant Power Distribution: To safeguard against any single point of failure, the data center featured redundant power distribution to the IT load.
- Redundant Air-Cooled Chillers: Efficient cooling is essential for data center reliability. The redundant air-cooled chillers provided a failsafe solution to maintain optimal operating temperatures.
- Redundant In-Row Air Conditioners: These systems played a vital role in temperature control and redundancy within the data center.
Throughout the project, DSI and HP worked closely with LADBS’s fire and life safety technicians to ensure seamless integration of IT and safety systems. Before the data center’s activation, the team conducted extensive system tests to verify electrical and battery connections.
Following the successful completion of the project, LADBS entrusted DSI with a comprehensive, multi-year preventative maintenance contract, underscoring the importance of building a partnership like this to ensure innovation and resiliency.
To learn more about how Data Specialties Inc. can help your organization overcome data center challenges and maximize efficiency like LADBS did, please get in touch with us. Together, we can find solutions that elevate your operations to new heights.
