Wired Up

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Bill Mazzetti a data-center guru. His experience with such facilities dates back to the early 1980s, when designers relied on manual-mount tape and water-cooled, 415-Hz mainframes, and over the past 30 years, he’s had a front-row seat to the evolution of how data is housed, used, transferred, and consumed. After growing up in the industry under mentors such as his father, Bill Mazzetti Sr., and Charles Kreiger, Mazzetti left Mazzetti & Associates in 2004 to join Rosendin Electric, Inc., where he now leads an engineering department capable of design, planning, testing, building-information modeling, and construction work. The California-based electrical-contracting firm has more than 5,000 employees and does $1.2 billion worth of business worldwide. Here’s a look at how Bill Mazzetti got to the company and how he helps it build data centers and other facilities.

Q&A WITH BILL MAZZETTI

What’s your main goal with data centers?
I’ve worked hard to change the concept of the data center from a mysterious building to something that’s common and easily understood by all the stakeholders on the project.

What’s most important when building an effective data center?
You have to know what you want to achieve. One of the challenges with data centers today is that one size does not fit all. It fits most, at best. There’s not a lot of time to fix things, and everything moves very fast because of the speed-to-market nature of a data center. You need clean and fast design, good purchasing, and good integration. You have to have very clear expectations and goals where the facility is a dead match to the technology it will house.

What about when it comes to working with a client?
The most important thing there is communication. You can’t understate this. Clients have bought servers and then used them differently to a point where the facility just hasn’t worked correctly. Since the data center is a factory that makes information, you have to know how the tools in the factory work in the end-to-end process.

Do you promote modular, colocation, or custom spaces?
It’s yes to all. I’ve seen the same thing play out repeatedly over 30 years in this industry. A client’s mission-critical facility solution is unique to a client’s business. You can insource, outsource, or mix your facility and technology approaches. With SaaS and other pay-as-you-go services, the physical infrastructure may not be in the client’s control; only their data might be.

In today’s market, there is a richness of options that weren’t available 5 or 10 years ago. In the past, small companies would start with a server and have to figure something out. Their first move would be to retail [a colocation center], then wholesale colo, and then it becomes build-to-suit. The only option for clients was this serial march forward with larger portfolios of commited capital as you move along.

Today, the rise of web-based services has allowed everyone to change how clients consume capacity, with a specific note that the industry is far more diverse, easy to use, technologically open, and nimble. Modular is merely the scope of infrastructure investment you make at any one time and how you deploy and consume data and facility infrastructure. There are many ways to achieve modular. The specific recipe to achieve one solution that works for one company won’t always work for the next. So, there’s no right or wrong answer. Every business is unique, and the data center simply has to be resilient and flexible.
___________________________________________________________________

BILL MAZZETTI ON …

The BladeRoom Group

What’s happening with BladeRoom is one of the most exciting opportunities in my career. After landing our first large commission in late 2014, we’re off and running in what I see as an important step for the industry. We can take a manufactured product, adapt it easily for any client, and deliver it faster than ever before through a less expensive model. It’s a complete surrogate for a traditionally built data center and offers our clients an option previously missing in their mission-critical development opportunities. The concept, perfected by BladeRoom in the UK, is a factory-built bespoke building. In the US, we are able to handle everything for major clients, from facilities solutions to electric infrastructure, so we’re dealing with them on a more complete solution and much higher level. It’s a great fit, especially for clients that are land-rich but may lack a more modern data-center environment. We take just 36 weeks for completed delivery, and that changes the whole dynamic of the marketplace.
___________________________________________________________________

Project Spotlight: The California Academy of Sciences

From 2006 to 2008, Mazzetti and Rosendin provided all electrical construction services for the complete rehab of the massive natural history museum at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, which remains one of the greenest buildings in the world. The 400,000-square-foot structure and its site posed many challenges. First, Rosendin employees had to dig into a sandy foundation, and later they were asked to conceal 57 miles of conduit in walls and slabs. They coordinated the connection of hundreds of custom-built light fixtures, and the entire electrical installation required tolerances of one quarter of an inch or better throughout the building.

The project even included work on a beachside saltwater plant that pumps in water from the ocean two miles away. Inside the building, scientists now perform research, and visitors interact with ocean animals and modern displays. Rosendin was tasked with creating the structure’s advanced, integrated lighting controls, shades, and windows, which operate based on exterior and interior air temperature and humidity. The building also has automated ventilation systems, radiant floor heating, 60,000 photovoltaic solar cells that generate 213,000 kWh annually, and a living roof that helps cool public spaces inside.