CASE STUDY: Financial Industry Giant Banks on Green IT in its Datacenter with Innovative Technology and Engineering from AFCO Systems

When a leading national financial services firm began building its new environmentally-responsible office tower in New York City, datacenter construction – including the choice of enclosures – was also required to meet certain rigorous standards for reducing the building’s potential carbon footprint.

Challenge
In its bid to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the financial industry leader conducted a competitive, multivendor evaluation process to select a partner capable of meeting its strict power and cooling requirements. Among other things, the firm required a company with manufacturing facilities located within a LEED-specified 500-mile radius.

One challenge became apparent immediately – the customer needed to fit many racks in a tight space. Due to the dimensions and space considerations of its datacenter, the financial services customer required a manufacturer that could engineer a nonstandard width rack and enclosure for its equipment.

Solution
The firm chose AFCO Systems, a recognized global leader in the design and manufacture of advanced enclosure technology for mission-critical datacenter environments. AFCO Systems engineers quickly produced a prototype never before seen in the industry – one that doesn’t exceed 20 inches in width, four inches slimmer than the industry standard. The new thin, strong rack and cable management system was perfect for the planned high-density datacenter environment.

By using its patented Sidecar technology, designed to maximize the usable space within an enclosure, AFCO was also able to move the financial services firm’s power and communication cables (including patch panels) outside of the cabinet frame, resulting in an increase of usable enclosure space of up to 33 percent. To date, AFCO Systems has delivered over 800 of the uniquely designed cabinets to the customer.

Unexpected benefits
In order to minimize packaging waste during shipping of the enclosures, AFCO engineers developed a unique reusable packaging approach that was subsequently adopted by the customer as a requirement for all large equipment deliveries.