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The Vegas SuperNAP tour published on August 11, 2008 described a 407,000-square-foot facility approaching its first-phase opening, then expected on September 1. Its unusual approach combined a concrete data hall without a raised floor, no in-room CRAC units, no liquid cooling, custom air-handling equipment and Switch’s T-SCIF heat-management system. The article presented those choices as a possible answer to the problem of packing increasingly powerful servers into a colocation site—but its capacity and cost figures were projections for a facility still being completed.
What the 2008 tour reported
Data Center Knowledge reported that the facility had orders for 800 racks before opening. The same contemporary report projected more than $300 million in completed construction cost and capacity for 7,000 customer servers. Those numbers describe the 2008 plan, not verified present-day operating capacity.
Switch had acquired a former Enron Broadband Services facility in Las Vegas in 2002. Rob Roy said the site’s existing bandwidth-exchange and fiber foundation, together with Switch’s telecom relationships, was part of the company’s competitive advantage. In that sense, the SuperNAP proposition was not only about cooling: it paired high power density with access to networks and carriers.
“My feeling is that when people see this, they’ll say that this is the answer going forward,” Roy said in the 2008 report.
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Tecmojo 6U Wall Mount Server Cabinet IT Network Rack Enclosure Lockable Door and Side Panels Black, Cooling Fan, Standard Glass Door, 450mm Depth, for 19” IT Equipment, A/V Devices
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How the original SuperNAP handled heat
No raised floor or room-mounted CRAC units
The design departed from the conventional data-center pattern of putting conditioned air beneath a raised floor and using computer-room air-conditioning units inside the hall. The tour described no raised floor and no in-room CRAC units. It also reported no liquid cooling and “virtually no water in the entire building.”
T-SCIF and custom WDMD units
Switch’s existing high-density area used T-SCIF, expanded in the article as “Thermal Separate Compartment in Facility,” to manage heat. The report also described custom WDMD air-cooling units with four coils. The coil arrangement was intended to support different cooling approaches as outdoor conditions and operating requirements changed.
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Keep the density figures separate
The report said racks in existing SwitchNAP facilities were operating at 1,500 watts per square foot. For the new SuperNAP, it described a capability to cool racks exceeding 20 kW of power load. These are different measurements: the first is an area-based density figure from existing facilities; the second is a rack-load cooling capability for the new facility.
Roy also said, “With our new design, we may be able to get to 2,000 watts per square foot.” That was a forward-looking statement, not evidence that the completed facility achieved that density.
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Why the design mattered for high-density computing
In 2008, higher-performance servers were increasing heat output faster than many conventional rooms were designed to absorb. The SuperNAP approach treated cooling as an integrated facility system rather than a collection of room units: isolate heat where possible, move air through purpose-built equipment, and avoid assuming that every rack would have the same load or cooling requirement.
The design also separated the commercial promise from a single headline specification. Customers were buying rack power, carrier and fiber access, and a building intended to keep operating under demanding thermal conditions. The article did not provide an independent energy study, uptime study or later measurement proving that the design met Roy’s forecasts.
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- ENHANCED VENTILATION & SECURITY - Built-in fans and flow-through ventilation work to prevent overheating, ensuring optimal operation of your equipment. The reinforced, lockable tempered glass front door not only boosts security but also facilitates easy monitoring of installed equipment.
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SuperNAP 7 and the later SuperNAP 8
Switch later referred to the original building as SuperNAP 7 and described SuperNAP 8 as a separate facility several hundred yards away. SuperNAP 8 was reported at 300,000 square feet, used modular construction and was described by Switch as having Tier IV Constructed Facility certification at the time of that account. Those details belong to SuperNAP 8; they should not be retroactively assigned to the 2008 building.
| Design aspect | Original facility, later called SuperNAP 7 | SuperNAP 8 |
|---|---|---|
| Reported size | 407,000 square feet (Data Center Knowledge, 2008) | 300,000 square feet (Switch; publication date not stated) |
| Layout | The 2008 tour emphasized the data hall’s nontraditional cooling layout; a detailed power-room separation figure was not stated. | Switch described a separate, modular layout with power rooms separated from data halls. |
| Cooling equipment | Custom WDMD units with four coils, plus T-SCIF heat management; no in-room CRAC units or liquid cooling were reported. | Switch described cooling units rated at 1,000 tons of air handling each, versus 600 tons for SuperNAP 7 units, and six cooling modes. |
| Power-interruption support | The 2008 report did not state the later flywheel or thermal-mass features. | Switch described rotary flywheels supporting HVAC units during outages and a steel “Black Iron Forest” providing containment support and thermal storage. |
| Building envelope | Not stated in the 2008 tour. | Switch described a double-roof system claimed to withstand winds up to 200 miles per hour. |
| Reported efficiency comparison | Not independently measured in the 2008 report. | Switch reported a full-year PUE of 1.18 for SuperNAP 7 and compared it with Google’s fleet PUE of 1.12; the figures are not independently validated or directly equivalent. |
Cooling flexibility and thermal mass in SuperNAP 8
Switch’s later account said each SuperNAP 8 cooling unit could handle 1,000 tons of air, compared with 600 tons for SuperNAP 7 units, and could operate in six cooling modes. It also described 2,000-pound rotary flywheels on each HVAC unit. The “Black Iron Forest” was presented as both a containment structure and a thermal store: in Roy’s words, “When it’s 69 degrees, that iron stays at 69 degrees for a long time.” These are Switch descriptions, not independently inspected current specifications.
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- The 2008 tour documented a facility designed around unusually high rack loads, unconventional air handling and extensive connectivity.
- The 7,000-server capacity, more-than-$300-million cost and September 1 opening date were contemporary projections or plans.
- The 1,500-watts-per-square-foot figure applies to existing SwitchNAP facilities; the greater-than-20-kW figure applies to the new facility’s rack cooling capability.
- SuperNAP 8 represents a later design generation and should be evaluated separately from the original building.
- No independently verified current capacity, PUE, uptime or operating specification is established by these accounts.
Switch’s current company overview identifies the company as founded in 2000 and headquartered in Las Vegas and lists Switch LAS VEGAS as a campus. That provides current company context, not a current specification sheet for either SuperNAP facility.
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