The data centre had to be built off-site in two pieceseach 11 tonnesand hoisted over the companys admin building using a crane.Assmang has announced that it has deployed a solution that was proposed, designed and deployed by Infrasol, Datacentrix infrastructure design and deployment business unit at its Khumani Iron Ore Minein the Northern Cape, South Africa.The mobile data centre solution will provide Khumani with greater agility, as the solution can physically be moved as needed.Ferdi Kirsten, manager: information technology at Assmang Khumani, said, The new data centre was built with an eye on our future needs. It will serve us well into the future, considering that our previous server room was operational for 11 years, and we foresee the new solutions life expectancy lasting even longer.Kirsten revealed that the mine needed to update and expand its previous server room, which was designed in 2006 prior to Khumani becoming operational in 2008. The original Khumani server room had become far too small for our needs ' the 4m x 4m room containing six racks meant that there was very little space to manoeuvre and we had experienced some issues with cooling.The container features a next-generation Huawei Fusion Module 2000 modular data centre solution, integrated with cabinets, power supply and distribution, cooling and cabling, management. The Huawei Fusion Module 2000 Containment System comes with the TIER-Ready stamp of approval from Uptime Institute. The fact that this technology is located within a protected mobile unit, which is also fitted with vibration pads to protect equipment from vibrations caused by nearby mining machinery, is the first implementation of its kind in South Africa, Kirsten stated.Bennett Naidoo, Infrasol business development manager at Datacentrix. Our initial plan was to build the entire solution at the mine. However, there were certain constraints around the stringent health and safety requirements to be approved prior to working on-site at the mine. In addition, it was difficult to obtain the correct approvals to enter the site over weekends and out of office hours.Therefore, we had to come up with a strategy that could speed up delivery, making the decision to construct two 3m x 13m modules at the factory. The two sections ' each one 11 tonnes ' were transported to the mine, lifted over the Khumani administration building using a crane, and placed in position.Fortunately, Assmang quickly approved our teams request to perform work on-site, signing off our safety, health and quality specifications without delay. The two sections were successfully lifted and rigged into position with no difficulties.Additional benefits for Khumani include rigorous security measures that were not in place previously, such as access control, CCTV and motion detection. The unit can also be monitored and managed remotely, with proactive alerts sent via mobile devices, and includes cold aisle containment to solve issues related to the heat. Says Naidoo: The four air conditioner units are configured in N+2 configuration to cater for the extreme heat conditions experienced in Kathu, and the uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) within the unit are configured as N+1 for redundancy.Datacentrix Infrasol team has operated in a highly professional manner, right from the pitch to now. The companys integrity and ownership of this project has been excellent, Kirsten concludes.Edited by Fundisiwe MasekoFollow Fundisiwe Maseko on TwitterFollow IT News Africa on Twitter
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