Data Centre Design Course

Lesson 1 • Key Infrastructure Domains Overview

Surveys power, cooling, network, and physical security as interdependent domains. Prepares students to study each domain in depth in later chapters.

Lesson 2 • Tier Classification and Availability Standards

Explains industry tier frameworks from basic single-path to fully fault-tolerant designs. Links availability targets to redundancy and capital investment decisions.

Lesson 3 • Data Centre Roles and Market Context

Defines enterprise, colocation, hyperscale, and edge facility types. Grounds subsequent design decisions in real-world deployment scenarios.

Lesson 1 • Financial Feasibility and Site Scoring

Combines capital cost estimates, operating cost projections, and risk scores into a site decision matrix. Enables data-driven site selection recommendations.

Lesson 2 • Facility Footprint and Space Planning

Translates capacity requirements into gross building area, white space ratios, and phasing plans. Produces a scalable floor plan framework for the design project.

Lesson 3 • Utility and Connectivity Infrastructure

Assesses power grid reliability, fibre diversity, and water availability at candidate sites. Establishes baseline utility constraints that shape redundancy design.

Lesson 4 • Zoning, Permitting, and Land Use

Navigates land use regulations, permitting timelines, and community impact requirements. Students identify approval risks early to protect project schedules.

Lesson 1 • Building Envelope and Construction Systems

Compares tilt-up concrete, steel frame, and modular construction for data centre applications. Selection criteria include speed, cost, thermal performance, and blast resistance.

Lesson 2 • Fire Suppression and Life Safety Systems

Integrates clean agent, pre-action sprinkler, and early warning detection into the architectural design. Life safety systems must coordinate with HVAC zoning and access control.

Lesson 3 • Structural Load Requirements

Calculates dead, live, and dynamic loads imposed by IT equipment, raised floors, and mechanical systems. Accurate load data drives structural member sizing in subsequent sections.

Lesson 4 • Interior Space Layout and Zoning

Organises white space, mechanical rooms, electrical rooms, and support areas for operational efficiency. Proper zoning minimises cross-traffic and supports security segmentation.

Lesson 1 • Utility Power Entrance and Switchgear

Designs medium-voltage service entrance, main switchgear, and automatic transfer switching. Establishes the upstream power foundation for all downstream distribution design.

Lesson 2 • Power Distribution Architecture

Routes power from switchgear through PDUs to rack-level outlets using radial and ring topologies. Proper distribution design prevents single points of failure at the rack level.

Lesson 3 • Power Monitoring and Energy Efficiency

Implements power monitoring at branch, PDU, and rack levels to enable PUE measurement and optimisation. Monitoring data feeds capacity planning and sustainability reporting.

Lesson 4 • Uninterruptible Power Supply Systems

Compares double-conversion, line-interactive, and modular UPS topologies for data centre use. Students size UPS capacity and runtime to meet availability and tier requirements.

Lesson 1 • Air-Based Cooling Architectures

Designs CRAC, CRAH, and in-row cooling systems with hot aisle and cold aisle containment. Containment strategies are the primary lever for improving air-cooling efficiency.

Lesson 2 • Liquid Cooling and Immersion Technologies

Evaluates rear-door heat exchangers, direct liquid cooling, and immersion cooling for high-density racks. These technologies enable rack densities beyond air-cooling limits.

Lesson 3 • Chilled Water and Refrigerant Systems

Designs chiller plants, cooling towers, and refrigerant-based systems for large-scale facilities. Students size primary and secondary loops and select redundancy configurations.

Lesson 4 • Cooling Efficiency and Water Management

Measures cooling efficiency using PUE, WUE, and ERE metrics and identifies optimisation opportunities. Water conservation strategies reduce environmental impact and operating costs.

Lesson 1 • Software-Defined Networking and Automation

Introduces SDN controllers, network automation frameworks, and intent-based networking concepts. Automation reduces configuration errors and accelerates provisioning at scale.

Lesson 2 • External Connectivity and Carrier Diversity

Designs diverse carrier connections, meet-me rooms, and internet exchange point access. Carrier diversity eliminates single points of failure in external connectivity.

Lesson 3 • Structured Cabling and Physical Layer

Designs copper and fibre cabling infrastructure from main distribution area to zone distribution areas. Proper cabling supports current speeds and provides a migration path to future standards.

Lesson 4 • Network Topology Fundamentals

Compares three-tier, spine-leaf, and fat-tree topologies for data centre environments. Topology selection determines scalability, latency, and east-west traffic performance.

Lesson 1 • Video Surveillance and Monitoring

Designs camera coverage plans, video management systems, and retention policies for the facility. Surveillance data supports incident investigation and compliance audits.

Lesson 2 • Intrusion Detection and Alarm Systems

Integrates motion sensors, door contacts, and glass-break detectors into a unified alarm platform. Alarm response procedures and escalation paths are defined alongside system design.

Lesson 3 • Compliance Auditing and Security Reporting

Maps physical security controls to audit frameworks and generates evidence for compliance reviews. Continuous reporting closes the loop between design intent and operational reality.

Lesson 4 • Security Perimeter and Site Hardening

Designs vehicle barriers, fencing, and landscaping to establish a defensible perimeter. Perimeter hardening is the first layer in a defence-in-depth security architecture.

Lesson 1 • Resilience Testing and Failover Validation

Designs and executes power failover, cooling failure, and network redundancy tests. Testing validates that design intent matches actual system behaviour under failure conditions.

Lesson 2 • Capacity Planning and Growth Management

Tracks power, cooling, space, and network utilisation to forecast when capacity thresholds will be reached. Proactive planning prevents capacity-driven outages and enables phased expansion.

Lesson 3 • Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Defines recovery time and recovery point objectives and maps them to infrastructure redundancy levels. Business continuity plans are tested and updated on a defined review cycle.

Lesson 4 • Data Centre Operations Framework

Establishes standard operating procedures, shift handover protocols, and change management processes. Operational discipline is the primary driver of availability beyond infrastructure design.