Today is a big day for digital.forest: Our newest datacenter cooling unit arrives on the roof!

Above: Mt. Rainier rises behind the crane.

We were up at the crack of dawn today to accept delivery of our newest Aaon 70 Ton rooftop cooling unit for our latest datacenter expansion. The sun rises around 4:40 AM this time of year so we had most of the operation complete by 8 o'clock, specifically the most difficult part of the process, lifting the components up onto the roof with a crane. The crane arrived at dawn and set up on the east side of our building. Flatbed trucks containing the steel frame for supporting the unit, and the cooling unit itself arrived in turn and their cargoes were lifted successfully.

The first item up was the steel superstructure. Its purpose is to extend the strength and support of the steel frame of the building up through the roof to support the cooling unit's weight. While our Aaon units are very compact and lightweight, extending the building frame to support them allows us to put more of them on the roof, therefore increasing the density and capacity of our datacenter. You can see our two previous units installed and running in the background. This unit brings our total number of cooling units up to four, with a total capacity of 333 tons.

Above: Workers prepare the steel frame and duct work for the arrival of the cooler.

The cooling unit is a "makeup air handler" which means that during the cool nights and all through the winter it operates in an "economizer" mode, meaning it uses cool outside air to chill the datacenter. When it gets warmer outside it can mix mechanical cooling with blended outside air, or on our rare hot days here in Seattle, it can go into full mechanical cooling. These are highly efficient units, so our energy use drops by up to 50% when it is cool outside, which here in Seattle is most of the time.

Above: The cooling unit being prepared for lifting.

Above: Arrival! The unit hovers centimeters above the steel frame.

Above: Kevin Teker, digital.forest Facilities Manager gives the thumbs up, indicating that the unit has landed safely and the crane work is done.

The rest of the morning our contractor, MacDonald-Miller will be securing the unit and preparing it for startup. Stay tuned, as we'll have updates, including a time-lapse video of today's work.

Regards,
Chuck Goolsbee
VP Technical Operations
digital.forest, Inc.