NSA Going Green with $1.6 Billion Utah Data Center by Doug Mohney

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Nov 25 2009) Construction

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   Even the National Security Agency (NSA) is not immune to the lure of green IT.  Information Week says the agency responsible for monitoring and protecting against cybersecurity threats will build a brand new $1.5 billion data center in Utah to provide intelligence and warnings related to cybersecurity threats, cybersecurity support to defense and civilian agency networks, and technical assistance to the Department of Homeland Security.

    Being built at Camp William, a National Guard training center 26 miles south of Salt Lake City, phase one of the NSA center will be a $800 million, 30 megawatt facility, with an $800 million expansion in phase two to 65 megawatts – or about the same amount of power used by all the homes in Salt Lake City combine.

    Reports say the facility will take up will take up to 1.5 million square feet of building space on 200 acres of government land, with a building three times the size of the Utah State Capitol Building.  Chilled water systems have been specified to support both air and water cooled equipment, and support systems will be sized to support expansion up to 65 megawatts.

    One of the design goal is to have the new construction "to the highest LEED standard attainable" within available resources, including sustainable site characteristics, water and energy efficiency, materials and resource criteria, and indoor environment quality, state unclassified construction project documents. 

    LEED standards, however, are being balanced against being able to support state-of-the-art high-performance computing devices and associated hardware – supercomputers and supporting gear aren't exactly known for being Energy Star compliant – as well as requirements for the facility to be built to SCIF security standards and for anti-terrorism force protection measures.

    Officials expect that the project may eventually bring as many as 1,200 high-tech jobs to Camp Williams.  Hosting the site near Salt Lake City allows NSA to tap into the high-tech workforce in the area, as well as to leverage the National Guard's "unique linguist units," reports the Salt Lake Tribune. 

    
   

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