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TOKYO — Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) announced that it made a full-scale entry into the space-saving and environmentally conscious modular data center business, enhancing its data center business in expectation of rapid market growth in the near future. The company has completed an experimental demonstration facility at its Fuchu Complex in western Tokyo, as the first step in its entry into the Japanese market for modular data centers. Toshiba will also promote energetic marketing activities in the global market, with the intent of taking the business to the worldwide level.

The distinctive strength of Toshiba's modular data centers is that they can be installed with a shorter lead time and at a lower cost than an equivalent data center housed in a dedicated building. The demonstration facility completed today was set up in approximately three months, and draws on the diverse capabilities of Toshiba Group to reduce environmental burdens and to support the following key features.

1. A robust steel frame structure that allows modules to be stacked, significantly multiplying capacity while maintaining the same footprint.

2. Each server room is provided with an air conditioning unit that employs the outside-air cooling method for effective control of power consumption. Estimates for a unit installed in Kanto, Japan, the region around Tokyo, indicate that using natural air cooling at all times other than the hot summer season cuts power consumption to around 35% that of a typical equivalent data center. This reduces CO₂ emissions by some 2,500 tons a year^[1]. Result for other locations will vary with climatic conditions.

3. The power supply system integrates a uninterruptible power supply that achieves an industry-leading level of 97% maximum equipment efficiency^[2].

Advances in information and communications technology (ICT) are spurring demand for support infrastructure, most notably data centers that manage and store information. As social networks and on-line services record further growth, and as many enterprises replace or expand data centers and transition to cloud computing and services, the volumes of data handled and archived in data centers continues to grow apace. In parallel, infrastructure development, most notably of smart communities that apply ICT to optimize and manage electricity generation and distribution, water, gas, roads and transportation, will also spur the generation and transmission of vast amounts of data, including supply-demand control, authentication and security data, and provide another major stimulus for data center demand. On the strength of these developments, the data center market is forecast to grow further.

As data generation and storage grow at an ever-faster rate, companies need to build data centers with capacity and scalability while securing responsiveness and flexibility. A solution to the fast increasing power consumption by ICT equipment, notably servers and storage devices, is also needed. Toshiba's environmentally conscious modular data centers address these needs by delivering quick installation and enhanced scalability and offering effective reductions in costs and power consumption.

Toshiba will take advantage of completion of the demonstration facility to enhance promotions to customers who are looking for flexibility in data center enhancement, reviewing simplified back-up facilities, or looking for data centers with a small footprint. The company will also continue to promote technological development aiming at optimizing operation of the data center as a whole, including ICT equipment, and at further reductions in power consumption. Toshiba will accelerate domestic and overseas promotion of the data center business and targets annual sales of approximately twenty billion yen in 2015.

[1]

Power consumption and CO ₂ emissions when the electrical load of the ICT equipment is 1,000kWh and power usage effectiveness (PUE) is reduced from 2.0 to 1.3.

[2]

For 500kVA equipment.

Outline of demonstration modular data center

Location: 1, Toshiba-cho, Fuchu, Tokyo (located in Toshiba Fuchu Complex)
Construction area: Approximately 216 m²
  Power source module: (W) 2.93 x (D) 9.05 x (H) 2.97 m²
  Server module: (W) 2.93 x (D) 9.05 x (H) 2.97 m²
  Air-conditioning module: (W) 2.85 x (D) 4.36 x (H) 3.96 m²
Completion: November 16, 2010
Power capacity: 200KVA
Racks: Up to nine racks of 46 servers

Photograph of demonstration modular data center