Perot Systems Building K Data Center

New Mission-Critical Facility

For nearly 20 years, Perot Systems Corporation (Perot Systems) has delivered technology-based business solutions to help organizations worldwide control costs and cultivate growth. Since 1997, Perot Systems has served as an IT service provider for Parsons, delivering technical innovation while keeping IT costs below industry benchmarks. They have upgraded, maintained, and operated all of Parsons’ business systems, plus established project communications, business hardware and software, and custom applications for virtually all Parsons projects globally.

In order to expand its capacity to serve its customers with 24/7/365 internet connectivity, business continuity, and enterprise data solutions, Perot Systems required a new data center. In 2006, Perot Systems selected Parsons to provide planning, programming, design, procurement, construction, and commissioning services for this new state-of-the-art data center to be built on Perot Systems’ existing campus.

The Building K data center was built in an existing storage building that was gutted and structurally retrofitted for the data center—a hardened, mission-critical facility. Facility renovation included demolishing existing HVAC and electrical equipment, strengthening the building walls and roof with structural steel, and adding a second floor for the raised floor computer room.

Parsons overcame the challenge of fitting the electrical/mechanical plant into the existing K building through careful equipment selection and installation design. Parsons’ designs for the electrical and mechanical systems included redundancy levels that provide for continuous power and cooling to the computer room. Emergency generators and power transformers were also included in the facility design.

Project Execution

The 36,000-ft² data center raised floor area was designed to be built out in two phases, each consisting of 18,000 ft² of space. The raised floor area contains the computer room, tape storage room, Information Technology (IT) staging area, and network area. The electrical and mechanical infrastructure was sized to accommodate day one raised floor power loads of 100 watts per square foot (wsf), with capability to readily expand electrical and mechanical capacity to support 160-wsf raised floor loads. In-row coolers, one of the latest data center cooling technologies, were used to meet this future data floor heat density objective.

Parsons designed the electrical and mechanical systems with appropriate redundancies to provide uninterruptible data center operation. The electrical systems include utility incoming power services, back-up generators, switchgear, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), power distribution units, and remote power panels. The mechanical systems include chillers, chilled water pumps, chilled water piping loops, air handling units, computer room air conditioners, in-row coolers, and cooling towers.

To meet the project completion schedule, Parsons’ design-build strategy for this project incorporated early procurement of major long-lead electrical and mechanical equipment (i.e., back-up power generators and primary power switchgear), phased construction for buildout of facility structural and architectural aspects while the mechanical and electrical design was being completed, and comprehensive commissioning of facility electrical and mechanical systems, life safety systems, facility control systems, and facility security systems. Parsons developed a detailed integrated schedule that coordinated the combined equipment installation activities of the owner’s personnel with the efforts of Parsons’ subcontractors throughout construction and commissioning.

Successful Completion

The Building K data center officially opened on June 27, 2007. The occasion was commemorated with a facility tour highlighting the center’s technological innovations, ribbon cutting ceremony, and reception attended by both Parsons and Perot Systems executive leadership, along with the companies’ team members directly involved with the project.

At the reception following the ribbon cutting ceremony, Peter Altabef, president and CEO of Perot Systems, remarked, “June 27 is an important day for Perot Systems. In addition to being Ross Perot’s birthday and the day Perot Systems was founded in 1988, we can now add the opening of this facility to the list of milestones. We are indebted to Parsons for their help in completing this expansion and look forward to our continued partnership, which celebrated its tenth anniversary on June 30.